/ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 
AND    BEHAVIOR 


BY 
ANDRE  TRIDON 


"Since  humanity  came  into  being,  man  has 
enjoyed  himself  too  little.  That  alone,  my 
brethren,  is  our  original  sin." 

Nietzsche. 


NEW  YORK      ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF      MCMXXI 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 

Publislied,  October,  1920 
Second  Printing,  March,  1921 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


Ed.  /Psych. 
Library 


73 


This  book 

is  respectfully  dedicated  to 
Dr.  Edward  J.  Kempf 
of  Washington,  D.  C. 


The  author  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to 
Dr.  N.  Philip  Norman,  Dr.  Edward  J.  Kempf,  Miss 
Helena  De  Kay,  H.  L.  Mencken.,  Esq.,  Dr.  Elizabeth 
Severn,  Israel  Spielberg,  Esq.,  and  Carl  Dreher, 
Esq.,  who  have  either  supplied  him  with  material 
for  the  present  book,  or  revised  his  manuscript  or 
offered  valuable  editorial  suggestions. 


PREFACE 

This  is  an  attempt  at  interpreting  human  conduct 
from  the  psychoanalytical  point  of  view.  The  un- 
conscious and  involuntary  play  a  tremendous  part 
in  human  life,  the  more  tremendous  as  they  usually 
masquerade  as  conscious  and  voluntary.  Courts 
and  public  opinion,  disregarding  that  fact,  either 
praise  or  condemn,  either  reward  or  punish.  Psy- 
choanalysis passes  no  judgments  and  only  seeks  to 
understand  and  help. 

The  author  has  not  felt  the  necessity  of  restating 
historical  and  theoretical  facts  to  which  he  devoted 
a  previous  book:  "Psychoanalysis,  its  history, 
theory  and  practice."  The  various  schools  of  an- 
alysis, however,  having  reached  almost  identical 
conclusions  as  to  human  behaviour,  although  they 
started  from  different  premises,  the  last  four  chap- 
ters of  the  present  book  shall  describe  the  paths 
followed  by  the  four  best  known  psychoanalysts, 
Freud,  Jung,  Adler  and  Kempf. 

ANDRE  TRIDON. 
121  Madison  Avenue, 

New  York  City.  September  1920. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PREFACE,  7 

L    THE  ORGANISM 

i.    THE  UNCONSCIOUS,  13 
ii.    BODY  AND  MIND,  AN  INDIVISIBLE  UNIT,  23 
in.    NERVES  AND  NERVOUSNESS,  34 

II.    PROBLEMS  OF  CHILDHOOD 
i.    CHILDHOOD  FIXATIONS,  53 
ii.    THE  SEXUAL  ENLIGHTENMENT  OF  CHIL- 
DREN, 66 

III.  PROGRESS  AND  REGRESSIONS 

i.  THE  NEGATIVE  AND  THE  POSITIVE  LIFE,  87 

ii.  SPEECH  AND  MEMORY  DEFECTS,  107 

in.  SCAPEGOATS,  115 

iv.  DUAL  PERSONALITIES,  129 

v.  How  ONE  WOMAN  BECAME  INSANE,  146 

vi.  THE  NEUROTIC  ASPECTS  OF  WAR,  165 

IV.  SLEEP  AND  DREAMS 

i.    SLEEP,  SLEEPLESSNESS  AND  NIGHTMARES, 

185 
ii.    SELF-KNOWLEDGE  THROUGH  DREAM  STUDY, 

201 

V.    PROBLEMS  OF  SEX 

i.    THE  LOVE  LIFE,  219 
ii.    CAN  WE  SUBLIMATE  OUR  CRAVINGS?  239 
HI.    PURITANISM,  A  DIGNIFIED  NEUROSIS,  252 


Contents 

VI.    THE  PSYCHOANALYTIC  TREATMENT 
i.    HYPNOTIST  AND  ANALYST,  269 

VII.    THE  FOUR  SCHOOLS  OF  PSYCHOANALYSIS 
i.    FREUD.    THE  PIONEER,  289 
n.    JUNG.    THE  ZURICH  SCHOOL,  305 
in.    ADLER.    INDIVIDUAL  PSYCHOLOGY,  319 
iv.    KEMPF.    DYNAMIC  MECHANISM,  331 

VIII.    INDEX,  351 


I.    THE  ORGANISM 


CHAPTER  I:     THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

To  the  majority  of  people,  our  conscious  life 
appears  as  the  most  important,  if  not  the  only  im- 
portant, form  of  life.  Most  of  our  rules  of 
behaviour,  most  of  our  judgments  on  human 
actions  are  based  upon  that  estimate  of  our  con- 
scious life. 

And  yet  we  are  conscious  of  very  few  things  at 
a  time  and  we  are  conscious  of  each  one  of  those 
things  only  for  variable,  some  times,  very  short 
periods. 

After  a  week,  a  day,  an  hour  or  a  fraction  of 
a  second,  the  various  things  we  were  conscious  of 
drop  out  of  our  consciousness,  temporarily  or  per- 
manently. We  may  witness  a  theatrical  perform- 
ance, be  conscious  of  it  that  evening,  think  of  it 
perhaps  the  next  day,  mention  it  several  times  in 
conversation,  remember  it  years  after  when  it  is 
alluded  to  in  our  presence,  and  then  "forget  it." 

But  the  impression  made  on  us  by  that  per- 
formance does  not  die  off.  It  only  becomes  un- 
conscious. That  impression  and  millions  of  others 
are  stored  up  in  our  "unconscious"  where  they  con- 
tinue to  live  as  unconscious  elements. 

[13] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


These  impressions  meant  either  active  or  passive 
reactions  to  certain  stimulations,  the  yielding  to  or 
resistance  to  those  stimulations,  memory-images  of 
satisfied  cravings  and  of  repressed  cravings,  joy  or 
pain,  longing  or  hatred,  in  other  words,  all  our  life 
from  the  day  of  our  birth,  with  all  its  struggles 
against  reality,  its  compromises  with  reality,  its 
victories  and  defeats,  etc. 

All  that  past  which  we  are  constantly  carrying 
with  us  and  to  which  we  are  constantly  adding,  is 
bound,  according  to  what  elements  predominate  in 
it,  to  colour  strongly  our  conscious  view  of  life  and 
to  determine  our  conscious  activities. 

A  neurologist,  a  sexual  pervert,  a  sculptor  and  a 
manicure  would  react  very  differently  to  the  sight 
of  a  woman's  hand.  An  egotist  would  be  unable 
to  notice  in  his  environment  things  of  a  neutral 
type,  that  is,  unlikely  to  affect  his  egotism  favour- 
ably or  unfavourably.  To  a  farmer,  a  certain  ac- 
cumulation of  clouds  might  only  suggest  a  danger 
to  his  crops;  the  same  meteorological  phenomenon 
might  transport  a  painter  with  artistic  joy.  A 
chemist  or  a  sailor  would  place  a  totally  different 
construction  on  their  observations  of  the  same 
clouds. 

We  know  that  unconscious  factors  cause  us  to 
engage  in  certain  forms  of  activity,  to  become  in- 
[14] 


What  Made  Me  Do  That? 


sane,  to  fall  asleep  or  to  remain  sleepless,  to  love 
a  certain  type  and  to  remain  frigid  to  another. 
They  influence  our  methods  of  reasoning,  making 
us  at  times  illogical  and  one-sided,  stubborn  and 
unjust. 

In  other  words  our  entire  life  is  influenced,  if 
not  entirely  determined,  by  unconscious  factors. 

Our  unconscious  is  the  greatest  time  and  energy 
saving  machine,  provided  it  functions  normally. 
Some  of  our  simplest  conscious  acts  presuppose 
an  enormous  amount  of  unconscious  work.  Step- 
ping aside  to  dodge  an  automobile,  simple  as  it 
appears,  is  only  made  possible  by  innumerable 
"mental"  and  "physical"  operations  such  as  realiz- 
ing the  nature,  size,  direction  and  speed,  of  the 
dangerous  object,  selecting  a  safe  spot  at  a  certain 
distance  from  it,  performing  the  necessary  muscu- 
lar actions,  etc.,  etc. 

On  the  other  hand  we  may,  without  any  apparent 
reason,  perform  useless,  absurd,  harmful  actions 
and  be  genuinely  grieved  or  puzzled  over  our 
behaviour.  We  ask  ourselves  "What  made  me 
do  that?" 

Our  unconscious  made  us  do  that.  Our  be- 
haviour was  dominated  and  determined  by  one  or 
several  factors  unknown  to  us  and  which,  unless 
investigated  systematically,  may  remain  unknown, 

[15] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


puzzling,  detrimental,  if  not  dangerous,  and  may 
at  some  future  time  be  once  more  the  cause  of 
irrational  behaviour. 

Our  unconscious  "contains"  two  sorts  of 
"thoughts"  :  those  which  rise  easily  to  the  surface 
of  our  consciousness  and  those  which  remain  at  the 
bottom  and  can  only  be  made  to  rise  with  more  or 
less  difficulty. 

Our  unconscious  is  like  a  pool  into  which  dead 
leaves,  dust,  rain  drops  and  a  thousand  other  things 
are  falling  day  after  day,  some  of  them  floating  on 
the  surface  for  a  while,  some  sinking  to  the  bottom 
and,  all  of  them,  after  a  while,  merging  themselves 
with  the  water  or  the  ooze.  Let  us  suppose  that 
two  dead  dogs,  one  of  them  weighted  down  with  a 
stone,  have  been  thrown  into  that  pool.  They  will 
poison  its  waters,  and  people  wishing  to  use  those 
waters  will  have  to  rake  the  ooze  and  remove  the 
rotting  carrion.  The  dog  whose  body  was  not 
fastened  to  any  heavy  object  will  easily  be  brought 
to  the  surface  and  removed.  The  other  will  be 
more  difficult  to  recover  and  if  the  stone  is  very 
heavy,  may  remain  in  the  pool  until  ways  and 
means  are  devised  to  dismember  him  or  to  cut  the 
rope  holding  him  down. 

Another  simile  might  be  offered.  Out  of  fifty 
persons  assembled  in  a  room,  not  one  may  be  think- 
[16] 


The  Unconscious  Is  Permanent 


ing  of  the  multiplication  table.  Yet  if  some  one 
points  out  three  chairs  worth  six  dollars  a  piece  and 
asks  the  audience  how  much  the  three  together  are 
worth,  the  part  of  the  multiplication  table  contain- 
ing the  answer  shall  rise  to  the  surface  of  every- 
body's consciousness,  to  sink  back  into  the 
unconscious  a  second  later. 

Other  thoughts  would  not  rise  so  willingly  into 
consciousness:  those  associated  with  some  painful 
or  humiliating  memory  or  with  the  repression  of 
some  human  craving.  Only  a  special  effort  aided 
by  many  association  tests  will  in  certain  cases  cut 
the  rope  that  holds  those  "dead  dogs  tied  to  their 
paving  stone." 

Such  thoughts  are  called  complexes  and  they 
are  the  most  disturbing  element  in  our  life,  for, 
unknown  to  us,  they  exert  a  strong  influence  on  all 
our  mental  operations  and  on  our  bodily  activities. 

It  is  not  so  much  our  consciousness  as  our  un- 
conscious which  IS  our  personality.  Our  conscious 
thoughts  are  fleeting  and  changing,  our  unconscious 
is  more  permanent.  If  we  take  a  list  of  some 
hundred  words  and  ask  a  person  to  tell  us  what 
comes  at  once  to  his  mind  when  he  hears  each  word 
spoken,  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  answers  which 
come  without  any  hesitancy  would  be  the  same 
several  months  afterward.  Those  answers,  in  fact, 

[17] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


by  their  wording,  present  a  striking  picture  of  the 
personality,  a  picture  which  only  changes  when  the 
personality  undergoes  distinct  modifications. 

Only  the  words  referring  to  the  person's  com- 
plexes are  likely  to  change,  as  if  the  unconscious 
was  trying  to  conceal  the  place  where  the  "dead 
dogs"  have  been  buried.  In  reaction  tests,  in  fact, 
the  subject's  failure  to  give  the  same  answer  is 
taken  to  indicate  a  hidden  complex.  But  even 
the  varying  answers  given  in  such  cases  are  closely 
related  to  one  another. 

When  we  remember  how  our  unconscious  has 
"grown,"  that  is,  through  the  accumulation  of 
memories  and  repressions  from  the  day  of  our 
birth,  or  even  from  our  prenatal  existence  to  the 
present  day,  we  must  realize  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  elements  which  constitute  it  is  primitive, 
infantile  or  childlike,  unadapted  or  only  partly 
adapted.  Its  influence  on  our  behaviour  is  not 
likely,  therefore,  to  facilitate  our  adaptation  to 
the  innumerable  rules  imposed  by  a  more  and  more 
complex  civilization. 

Through  all  our  life  our  unconscious  follows 
us  like  the  shadow  of  an  archaic  self,  prompting  us 
to  seek  a  line  of  lesser  resistance,  or  to  give  up 
the  struggle  with  the  modern  world,  to  indulge 
ourselves  in  many  ways  which  are  no  longer  accept- 
[18] 


Wrong  Suggestions 


able  socially;  when  childlike  or  infantile  elements 
predominate  in  it,  its  influence  may  unfit  us  com- 
pletely for  life  in  modern  communities  unless  we 
are  brought  to  a  clear  realization  of  the  ghostly 
power  masquerading  as  ourselves  and  which  tries 
to  pull  us  back. 

When  the  man  we  were  yesterday  offers  us  sug- 
gestions as  to  conduct,  we  are  probably  safe  in 
accepting  them.  When  the  boy  we  were  at  15,  en- 
deavours to  convince  us  that  his  way  was  the  only 
way,  the  struggle  for  mastery  between  ourselves 
and  the  boy  may  usher  in  a  neurosis.  When  the 
infant  we  were  at  one  or  two  years  of  age,  coaxes 
us  to  indulge  ourselves  as  he  did  and  we  yield  to 
his  entreaties,  we  may  regress  temporarily  or  per- 
manently to  a  level  at  which  we  shall  be  adjudged 
insane. 

Academic  psychologists  have  suggested  a  num- 
ber of  very  interesting  but  meaningless  words  to 
designate  the  varying  degrees  of  unconsciousness, 
such  as  foreconscious,  preconscious,  subconscious, 
etc.  .  .  . 

For  scientific  purposes  the  word  unconscious  is 
sufficient.  Instead  of  distinguishing  degrees  of  un- 
consciousness which  may  easily  change,  it  is  pref- 
erable to  assign  reasons  for  unconsciousness. 
The  multiplication  table  in  the  above  illustration 

[19] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


was  unconscious  because  it  was  not  needed,  for 
reasons  of  economy.  It  became  conscious  when 
needed.  Other  factors,  mentioned  previously,  re- 
main unconscious  because  the  thought  of  them  is  re- 
pressed or  suppressed.  Some  are  forgotten,  be- 
cause they  are  insignificant,  some  because  the 
memory  of  them  is  weighted  with  unpleasant  con- 
notations as  one  of  the  dead  dogs  was  weighted  with 
a  paving  stone. 

It  is  the  task  of  psychoanalysis  to  make  us 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  content  of  our  uncon- 
scious that  we  may  on  every  occasion  determine 
whether  the  voices  talking  to  us  from  the  past 
buried  in  us  are  the  voices  of  civilization  or  the 
voices  of  regression. 

Psychoanalysis  forewarns  us  against  any  undue 
influence  it  may  exert  in  the  conduct  of  our  lives 
and  helps  those  of  us  who  may  have  listened  to  the 
wrong  voice  to  free  themselves  from  their  slavery. 

Instead  of  saying,  as  academic  psychologists 
would  put  it,  that  the  psychoanalytic  technique  can 
make  unconscious  factors  foreconscious  and 
finally  conscious  we  should  say  that  it  can  estab- 
lish a  relation  of  cause-effect  between  certain  acts 
and  certain  unconscious  factors. 

For  that  reason  psychoanalysis  is  the  only  key  to 
an  understanding  of  human  behaviour.  Ethics 
[20] 


Every  Case  Is  Peculiar 


and  statute  books  only  record  the  various  com- 
promises which  mankind  in  its  onward  march  has 
had  to  make  with  reality.  They  have,  however,  no 
absolutely  scientific  value,  because  they  are  based 
upon  the  conception  of  an  inexistent  being,  the 
average  human  being. 

Psychoanalysis  on  the  other  hand  discards  the 
"average"  man  or  woman  and  deals  solely  with  the 
individual. 

The  neurotic  applying  for  treatment  who  states 
that  his  case  is  a  "very  peculiar  one"  is  both  right 
and  wrong.  His  case  as  a  clinical  picture  is  prob- 
ably a  very  common  one  but  as  the  content  of  one 
man's  unconscious  is  necessarily  very  different 
from  that  of  any  other  man's  unconscious,  no  case 
can  be  prejudged  from  the  observations  made  in 
any  other  case.  Every  case  is  "peculiar." 

The  law  and  current  ethics  criticize  or  punish  a 
pool  for  containing  a  dead  dog  which  is  held  down 
by  a  powerful  weight,  and  for  poisoning  those  who 
drink  of  its  water. 

Psychoanalysis  looks  for  the  corpse  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  pool  and  endeavours  to  remove  it. 
Neither  before  nor  after  the  operation  does  it  pass 
judgments  or  pronounce  sentences. 

To  understand  is  to  forgive,  but  in  spite  of  its 
frankly  determinist  attitude  in  matters  of  behaviour, 

[21] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


psychoanalysis  does  not  condone  unethical  or 
criminal  behaviour.  Hygienists  would  not  insult 
or  punish  the  infected  pool  but  they  would  fence 
it  off  until  the  contaminating  substances  had  been 
removed.  Irrational  and  criminal  individuals 
should  be  likewise  restrained  and  isolated,  not  for 
purposes  of  castigation,  but  until  such  time  when 
dangerous  factors  in  their  unconscious  have  been 
removed  and  when  re-education  has  enabled  them 
to  resume  their  place  among  normal  individuals. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  subject  of  the  unconscious  is  discussed  very  clearly 
in  non-technical  language  by  William  Lay  in  "Man's  Un- 
conscious Conflict"  (Dodd,  Mead  and  Co.)  pages  48 
to  126. 

This  book  is  an  excellent  primer  for  those  who  wish  to 
familiarize  themselves  with  the  terminology  of  psycho- 
analysis. 

Advanced  readers  may  study  Jung's  book  "Psychology 
of  the  Unconscious"  (Moffat  Yard)  which  requires  a 
certain  knowledge  of  folklore,  ancient  religions  and 
psychiatry. 

The  chapters  on  Instincts,  Memory  Images  and  Trop- 
isms  in  Jacques  Loeb's  "Forced  Movements,  Tropisms 
and  Animal  Conduct"  (Lippincott)  will  also  prove  very 
valuable  from  the  mechanistic  ppint  of  view. 


[22] 


CHAPTER  II:     BODY  AND  MIND,  AN  INDI- 
VISIBLE  UNIT 

Academic  psychologists  simplify  their  tasks  by 
allotting  the  body  to  physiologists  and  occupying 
themselves  exclusively  with  the  mind.  Applied 
psychology  of  the  analytical  type  has  been  com- 
pelled to  discard  that  arbitrary  division  of  the 
human  organism  into  "mental"  and  "physical." 

Physiologists  prying  their  way  into  obscure 
"physical"  phenomena  have  innumerable  times 
reached  a  sort  of  middle  kingdom  in  which  it  seems 
impossible  to  produce  anything  "physical"  without 
producing  at  the  same  time  something  "mental," 
in  which,  to  every  "physical"  stimulation,  there  cor- 
responds a  "mental"  effect  and  to  every  "mental" 
stimulation  corresponds  a  "physical"  effect. 

After  observing  the  constant  interrelation  exist- 
ing between  secretions,  attitudes  and  emotions,  one 
no  longer  feels  justified  in  speaking  vaguely  of  the 
influence  of  the  mind  on  the  body  or  reciprocally. 
One  can  no  longer  understand  life  unless  one 
admits  that  mind  and  body  are  one. 

The  task  of  the  psychoanalyst  would  be  a  hope- 

[23] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


less  one  if  he  ever  attempted  to  study  the  so-called 
"mental"  disturbances  as  purely  "psychic"  phe- 
nomena; the  physician  who  would  treat  bodily  ail- 
ments as  purely  "physical"  manifestations  would 
be  baffled  and  impotent. 

It  is  only  the  profoundly  ignorant  who  at  the 
present  day  pretend  to  know  the  limits  of  the  physi- 
cal and  of  the  mental  and  attempt  to  attribute 
certain  phenomena  to  the  mind  and  others  to  the 
body. 

Cut  off  a  frog's  head,  thereby  removing  the  brain 
which  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  the  seat  of  the 
mind,  of  the  intelligence,  of  consciousness,  etc. 
The  frog  then  should  be  "  entirely  dead"  or  at  least 
should  not  be  expected  to  perform  any  act,  except 
of  a  purely  reflex  type,  showing  any  "intelligence." 
And  yet  if  you  apply  a  strong  stimulus  such  as  a 
drop  of  prussic  acid  to  the  skin  of  the  frog's 
stomach,  one  of  the  legs  will  at  once  try  to  reach 
the  burnt  spot  and  to  remove  the  harmful  stimulus. 

Such  a  "reflex"  act  proves  that,  even  in  the 
absence  of  any  thinking  apparatus,  the  organism 
is  aware  that  something  harmful  is  happening  to 
one  of  its  parts  and  endeavours  to  perform  appro- 
priate motions  to  protect  itself  against  further 
destruction. 

If  a  set  of  nerves  and  muscles  can  "think"  as 
[24] 


Nervous  Hunger 


clearly  as  that,  unassisted  by  any  brain  or  mind, 
the  so-called  purely  physical  must  be  endowed  with 
a  remarkable  proportion  of  "mentality." 

The  deplorable  inaccuracy  of  the  words  mental 
and  physical  is  well  illustrated  by  experiments 
made  on  dogs. 

Feed  a  dog  every  possible  morsel  that  will  induce 
him  to  overeat  until  the  beast  turns  in  disgust  from 
the  most  appetizing  food. 

Inject  into  that  overfed  dog  blood  from  a  dog 
who  has  been  kept  hungry  for  two  days  and  the 
overfed  dog  will  throw  himself  on  food  "as  though" 
he  were  hungry. 

The  same  experiment  could  probably  be  per- 
formed as  successfully  on  a  man.  The  man,  how- 
ever, would  wonder  at  the  possibility  of  his  experi- 
encing hunger  after  being  surfeited  with  all  sorts 
of  dainties.  He  would  doubt  the  testimony  of  his 
"senses,"  and  speak  of  "nervous  hunger,"  of 
"imaginary  hunger,"  vague  terms  which  explain 
nothing. 

If  a  dog  is  infuriated  by  the  presence  of  a  cat, 
he  will  display  for  "reasons"  which  to  him  and 
the  onlookers  appear  "plausible"  and  "logical," 
symptoms  of  anger  such  as  the  dilatation  of  his 
pupils,  bristling  of  the  hair,  snarling,  stiffening  of 
the  body,  defensive  poses. 

[25] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Inject  a  small  amount  of  adrenin  into  the  veins 
of  that  dog  or  any  other  dog  of  not  especially 
vicious  disposition,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  cat  or 
any  other  disturbing  element,  he  will,  "without  any 
reason"  stare,  snarl,  bristle  up  his  hair,  and  gener- 
ally express,  through  threatening  attitudes,  violent 
anger. 

When  large  amounts  of  adrenin  are  released  into 
the  human  blood  stream  owing  to  the  abnormal 
functioning  of  certain  glands,  set  in  motion  per- 
haps by  some  obscure  unconscious  thought,  a  man 
may  likewise  assume  an  attitude  of  anger,  "without 
any  reason,"  and  may  justify  his  attitude  by  "imag- 
ining" a  grudge  against  some  people,  or  impatience 
at  certain  things.  His  attitude  may  later  on  appear 
to  him  absurd  and  incomprehensible.  He  may 
then  excuse  himself  on  the  plea  that  "he  lost  control 
of  himself"  or  "he  was  not  himself." 

A  crowd  may  congregate  and  indulge  in  some 
ridiculous  or  violent  deed  of  which,  the  following 
day,  every  individual  member  may  feel  deeply 
ashamed.  "Crowd  psychology,"  "mob  suggestion" 
will  then  be  invoked,  the  assumption  being  that  all 
the  individuals  constituting  the  crowd  had  at  one 
time  a  sort  of  "collective  mind"  dominated  by  one 
and  the  same  obsessive  "thought." 

A  curious  light  is  thrown  upon  the  behaviour  of 
[26] 


Mob  Psychology 


mobs  by  the  behaviour  of  copepods,  small  crusta- 
ceans, when  carbonated  water  or  beer  or  alcohol 
are  poured  into  the  aquarium  in  which  they  disport 
themselves.  As  long  as  their  water  remains  pure, 
they  are  apparently  in  full  possession  of  their 
"free  will"  and  displace  themselves  as  they  please. 
As  soon  as  the  ingredients  mentioned  above  are 
added  to  the  water,  they  all  abandon  their  occupa- 
tions and  go  to  mass  themselves  at  the  end  of  the 
aquarium  which  is  turned  toward  the  light. 

If  one  continues  to  drop  at  intervals  small  quan- 
tities of  carbonated  or  alcoholic  liquids  into  the 
aquarium,  the  little  mob  remains  in  the  same  posi- 
tion. It  cannot  turn  round.  Nor  can  the  helpless 
animals  partake  of  their  food,  if  that  food  happens 
to  be  placed  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  aquarium, 
that  is,  away  from  the  source  of  light. 

Drain  the  polluted  water  or  place  the  copepods 
into  fresh  water  and  the  mob  will  soon  disperse, 
each  small  animal  regaining  its  freedom  of  indi- 
vidual motion  and  of  direction. 

Pour  into  the  aquarium  strychnin,  caffein  or 
atropiri  and  the  copepods  will  once  more  gather 
into  a  mob,  this  time,  however,  at  the  end  of  the 
aquarium  furthest  removed  from  the  light. 

Their  previous  "fondness"  for  sunlight  has  been 
replaced  by  a  "craving"  for  darkness. 

[27] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Prophets,  artists,  reformers,  lovers,  may  undergo 
all  sorts  of  trials,  brave  starvation  and  death  in 
order  to  seek  their  ideal,  and  some  day  they  may 
forsake  their  ideal.  Lovers  having  recovered  from 
their  "infatuation"  may  recall  with  astonishment  or 
shame  many  absurd  things  they  said  or  did  once 
and  look  upon  their  former  love  object  with  disgust 
or  even  hatred. 

Certain  animals  like  copepods  can  be  fooled  a 
number  of  times  and  be  made  to  fall  in  love  now 
with  the  sun,  now  with  the  darkness.  Others  which, 
were  they  human  beings,  would  be  said  to  learn 
very  quickly  from  experience,  are  never  victimized 
but  once  by  their  "idealistic  cravings"  and  after- 
ward lead  a  perfectly  "sensible"  life. 

Take  some  newly  hatched  caterpillars  and  de- 
posit them  at  the  foot  of  a  rod  or  stick  on  which 
the  sunlight  is  shining.  They  will  all  climb  to  the 
top  and  stay  there,  staring  at  the  sun,  apparently 
engrossed  in  the  contemplation  of  their  "ideal." 
In  fact  they  would  starve  to  death  unless  some  one 
fed  them  a  small  piece  of  green  leaf. 

As  soon  as  they  partake  of  that  food,  their 
obsessive  sun  worship  seems  to  disappear.  They 
climb  down  the  barren  stick  and  seek  other  stores 
of  food,  never  bothering  any  more  with  the  sun  or 
other  sources  of  light. 
[28] 


The  Electric  Dog 


Watch  the  behaviour  of  bees  at  mating  time. 
Male  and  female  can  only  fly  in  one  direction,  that 
is  toward  the  sun,  and  their  amorous  ecstasy  car- 
ries them  into  "higher  regions,"  "uplifts"  them, 
takes  them  "far  from  the  earth."  The  sexual  act 
performed,  they  both  become  once  more  crea- 
tures of  the  earth,  fly  back  to  their  native  hive 
and  no  longer  feel  the  "fascination  of  the  empy- 
rean." 

An  invention  described  recently  in  publications 
devoted  to  electrical  science  shows  how  difficult  it 
would  be  to  draw  an  absolute  line  of  demarkation 
between  actions  apparently  due  to  physical  and 
chemical  causes  and  actions  apparently  due  to  the 
exercise  of  our  "will  power"  and  prompted  by 
"feelings,"  etc. 

The  electric  dog  has  two  eyes  supplied  with 
condensing  lenses  focussed  on  two  selenium  cells. 
Selenium  is  an  element  whose  electrical  properties 
change  under  the  influence  of  light.  The  selenium 
cells  control  two  electro-magnetic  switches.  Two 
motors,  on  the  right  and  left,  can  propel  the  dog 
forward  or  backward. 

When  light,  as  for  instance  from  a  small  flash 
lamp,  is  thrown  on  both  eyes,  the  current  is  switched 
on  to  both  motors  and  the  dog  advances  toward  the 
light.  When  the  lamp  is  held  to  the  right,  the  right 

[29] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


motor  only  is  actuated  and  the  dog  turns  to  the 
right.  The  dog  follows  the  light  in  the  most  com- 
plicated manoeuvres.  Shade  the  light  and  the  dog 
stops;  reverse  the  motors  and  the  dog  runs  away 
from  the  light,  dodging  it  wherever  it  may  come 
from. 

Thus  a  moth  will  rush  toward  a  flame,  thus 
owls  fly  in  distress  from  any  bright  light,  thus 
human  beings  are  perhaps  "propelled"  toward  a 
goal,  which  they  think  they  are  striving  for,  thus 
the  races  of  the  earth  once  started  on  their  westward 
wanderings,  thus  cities  and  towns,  when  not  re- 
strained by  natural  obstacles  of  an  insuperable 
nature,  like  mountains  or  bodies  of  water,  spread 
to  the  westward. 

Naturalists  manage  to  make  the  problem  a  little 
more  complicated  by  telling  us  that  animals  and 
plants  which  are  "fond"  of  light,  that  is  which  are 
involuntarily  and  unavoidably  determined  by  light, 
are  also  "fond"  of  blue  and  green,  while  animals 
which  are  negatively  heliotropic,  that  is  "fond"  of 
darkness  and  afraid  of  light,  are  "fond"  of  the 
colour  red. 

And  experiments  on  thousands  of  human  beings 
have  revealed  that  men  are  most  deeply  affected  by 
blue,  women  by  red. 

Whenever  experiments  first  made  on  animals 
[30] 


Cats,  Dogs  and  Men 


have  been  tried  on  human  beings  their  results  have 
been  found  to  confirm  the  first  observations. 

We  know  that  the  same  method  of  training  makes 
both  a  man  and  a  passenger  pidgeon  sexual  per- 
verts. Laboratory  experiments  have  proved  that 
female  cats  and  female  dogs  react  more  slowly  to 
anger  stimuli  than  the  males  of  both  species,  the 
result  being  a  smaller  percentage  of  sugar  found  in 
their  urine.  Observations  made  on  college  students 
of  both  sexes  prove  that  the  rule  holds  good  when 
human  beings  are  concerned.  Human  subjects,  un- 
fortunately, cannot  be  used  as  frequently  as  they 
should  be  to  assure  us  of  the  universal  application 
of  certain  biological  and  biochemical  laws. 

Some  day  when  we  abandon  our  wasteful  method 
of  dealing  with  criminals  and  give  unredeemable 
offenders  an  opportunity  to  pay  for  the  damage 
they  have  inflicted  by  submitting  to  scientific  ex- 
periments likely  at  times  to  result  in  death,  we  may 
be  able  to  ascertain  accurately  in  what  measure 
chemical  determinism,  for  example,  rules  the  lives 
of  men. 

Specialization  being  the  only  road  to  thorough 
knowledge  and  efficiency,  body  and  mind  must  at 
present,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  be  treated 
separately  when  in  distress.  Internist  and  analyst, 
however,  must  co-operate,  both  applying  the  latest 

[31] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


methods  devised  in  their  particular  field  and  sub- 
mitting to  each  other  the  doubtful  details  of  every 
case. 

While  analysts  agree  that  innumerable  diseases 
of  the  so-called  physical  variety  are  induced  or 
invited  by  some  unconscious  predisposing  factor, 
no  analyst  denies  the  value  of  medical  help  or 
would  suggest  doing  without  it.  If  a  subject  has 
been  so  weakened  by  a  wrong  mental  attitude  that 
his  body  has  become  an  easy  prey  for  certain 
bacilli,  all  efforts  should  be  made  to  check  or 
eliminate  those  bacilli  in  order  to  avoid  the  further 
inroads  they  might  make  on  the  organism. 

Specific  medical  treatment  should  be  sought 
under  the  direction  of  a  physician  who  keeps  him- 
self well  informed  as  to  the  latest  therapeutic 
methods,  the  most  efficient  pharmaceutic  prepara- 
tions, etc.  The  family  physician,  the  surgeon,  the 
average  specialist,  however,  cannot  be  expected  to 
follow  all  the  research  work  done  in  applied 
psychology. 

Although  Freud  and  other  prominent  analysts 
have  stated  that  psychoanalytical  practitioners  need 
not  have  medical  training,  an  analyst  should  possess 
a  good  working  knowledge  of  anatomy,  physiology 
and  neurology.  Reciprocally,  every  physician 
should  receive  some  elementary  training  in  applied 
[32] 


A  Basis  for  Co-operation 


psychology,  regardless  of  whether  he  is  to  take  up 
the  practice  of  general  medicine  or  to  specialize 
in  some  particular  branch  of  the  medical  profes- 
sion. 

Then,  those  who  treat  the  more  obviously  mate- 
rial part  of  the  organism  and  those  who  treat  the 
more  intangible  part  of  the  personality  can  co- 
operate intelligently  in  relieving  the  ailments  of 
the  human  unit. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Two  books  are  absolutely  essential  to  readers  desir- 
ing to  study  the  problem  of  the  interrelations  of  body  and 
mind  from  the  modern  physiological  point  of  view. 
Loeb's  book  mentioned  in  the  bibliography  for  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  and  W.  B.  Cannon's  capital  work  "Bodily 
Changes  in  Pain,  Hunger,  Fear  and  Rage"  (Appleton). 
The  latter  book  contains  a  very  readable  and  entertaining 
summary  of  many  experiments  made  by  Cannon  and  his 
students  not  only  on  laboratory  animals  but  on  them- 
selves as  well,  showing  the  chemical  changes  which 
correspond  to  the  various  "emotions."  G.  W.  Crile's 
"Man  an  Adaptive  Mechanism,"  while  not -as  recent  as 
Cannon's  book,  should  also  be  consulted. 


[33] 


CHAPTER  III:  NERVES  AND  NERVOUS- 
NESS 

Nerves,  nervous  and  nervousness  are  terms  which 
should  be  used  less  frequently  and  less  carelessly. 
"My  nerves  are  on  edge"  or  "I  am  a  nervous  wreck" 
are  picturesque  expressions  devoid  of  any  meaning 
and  which  convey  a  very  inaccurate  picture  of  what 
is  taking  place  in  the  organism. 

To  the  layman,  nerves  are  just  nerves;  the  nerve 
which  a  dentist  "kills"  and  the  nerve  which  makes 
our  heart  palpitate  are  to  him  identical  things. 

In  reality  there  are  in  the  human  body  two 
nervous  systems  whose  appearance,  colour,  make 
up,  distribution  and  functions  are  as  different  as 
night  is  from  day. 

There  is  the  sensori-motor  system,  or  the  system 
of  nerves  which  bring  to  the  brain  the  information 
about  the  condition  of  the  various  parts  of  the  body 
and  about  the  way  in  which  those  parts  are  affected 
by  the  environment:  the  nerves  which  tell  us  what 
the  eye  "sees,"  what  the  mouth  "tastes,"  what  the 
nose  "smells,"  whether  the  water  in  which  we  poke 
[34] 


The  Autonomic  Nerves 


our  toe  is  cold  or  hot,  whether  the  apple  we  hold 
is  hard  or  soft. 

That  system  also  transmits  from  the  brain  to  the 
various  muscles  definite  orders  based  upon  the  in- 
formation received.  Motor  nerves  open  or  close 
our  eyes,  cause  us  to  chew  or  spit  out  certain  kinds 
of  food,  to  extend  our  arm  toward  a  desirable  object 
or  withdraw  it  from  a  dangerous  object,  etc. 

The  sensori-motor  nerves  are  white  fibres  en- 
veloped in  a  fatty  sheath  interrupted  at  intervals  by 
nodes. 

Besides  this  system  there  is  another  nervous 
system  for  which  various  names  are  being  used, 
such  as  the  vegetative  system,  the  sympathetic 
system  or  the  autonomic  system.  These  nerves 
are  white  fibres  covered  by  a  very  thin  mem- 
brane instead  of  a  thick  sheath  and  presenting 
a  more  regular  appearance  owing  to  the  absence 
of  nodes. 

Instead  of  issuing  directly  from  the  spinal 
column  as  the  sensori-motor  nerves  do,  the  auto- 
nomic nerves,  with  the  exception  of  the  vagus  which 
has  its  root  in  the  brain,  take  their  roots  in  a  column 
of  ganglia  located  in  front  of  the  vertebrae. 

Although  this  system  disintegrates  soon  after 
death,  for  it  is  poorly  protected  and  its  ganglia  lie 
close  to  tissues  which  putrefy  readily  (nasal  mu- 

[35] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


cous  membrane,  buccal  cavity  and  intestinal  canal), 
it  is  older  than  the  sensori-motor  system  and  it 
is  fully  developed  at  birth. 

The  autonomic  system  supplies  the  internal  or- 
gans of  the  body,  tear  glands,  sweat  glands,  salivary 
glands,  hair  roots,  lungs,  heart,  stomach,  liver,  in- 
testine, adrenal  glands,  bladder,  rectum  and 
genitals.  It  carries  motor  impulses,  but  scientists 
are  not  agreed  as  to  whether  it  carries  sensations. 
It  also  controls  in  part  the  movements  of  the  pupil. 

The  autonomic  system  is  divided  up  into  two  sub- 
systems which  we  shall  designate  as  the  cranio- 
sacral  division  or  end  division  and  the  thoracico- 
lumbar  division,  or  sympathetic  division  or  middle 
division. 

The  two  divisions  are  absolutely  antagonistic  in 
action.  For  instance  the  cranio-sacral  contracts  the 
pupil,  the  sympathetic  dilates  it;  the  cranio-sacral 
division  slows  down  the  heart  action,  the  sympa- 
thetic division  accelerates  it. 

The  cranio-sacral  division  promotes  all  the 
activities  which  build  up  the  individual  and  assure 
the  continuance  of  the  race. 

The  sympathetic  division  which  extends  from  the 
neck  to  the  upper  sacral  region,  decreases  or  stops 
all   those  activities    in   emergencies   and   releases 
safety  devices. 
[36] 


The  Nervous  Balance 


For  instance  the  cranio-sacral  division  causes 
saliva  to  flow,  which  helps  the  disintegration  of  food 
in  the  mouth;  it  causes  the  stomach  glands  to  secrete 
gastric  juice  and  the  stomach  to  contract  regularly 
and  vigorously,  which  activates  the  digestion  and 
speeds  the  digested  food  on  its  way  into  the  intes- 
tine; it  contracts  the  intestine  and  hence  assists  the 
elimination  of  waste  matter;  it  holds  the  rectum  and 
bladder  openings  closed  until  the  proper  accumu- 
lation of  feces  or  urine  makes  voiding  necessary; 
it  regulates  the  heart  beats,  prevents  the  pupil  from 
admitting  too  much  light  and  focuses  it  so  that  it 
throws  a  clear  image  on  the  retina;  finally  it  fills 
the  exterior  genitals  with  blood  and  enables  them 
to  perform  their  specific  functions. 

The  sympathetic  division,  on  the  contrary,  stops 
the  flow  of  saliva  and  of  gastric  juice,  stops  the 
contractions  of  the  stomach  or  reverses  their  direc- 
tion, so  that  food  may  be  regurgitated  into  the 
aesophagus  and,  at  times,  vomited;  it  speeds  the 
heart  action ;  at  times,  it  voids  suddenly  the  bladder 
and  bowels;  releases  into  the  blood  stream  a  flow 
of  adrenin  which  contracts  the  arteries  and  a  flow  of 
sugar  from  the  liver  which  supplies  the  body  with 
extra  fuel;  stops  all  genital  functions;  causes  the 
pupil  to  dilate,  thus  giving  the  eye  a  staring  glare; 
bristles  the  hair,  causing  goose  flesh,  etc. 

[37] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


One  can  see  at  once  how  all  the  activities  of  the 
sympathetic  protect  the  organism  either  directly, 
by  initiating  necessary  activities,  or  indirectly,  by 
inhibiting  certain  activities  which  are  not  necessary 
in  emergencies. 

When  the  organism  is  in  danger,  that  is,  must 
resort  to  fight  or  flight,  nutrition  and  sex  activities 
should  cease.  Not  only  should  they  cease  because 
the  organism  in  danger  cannot  attend  to  them  prop- 
erly, but  also  because  they  deflect  toward  their 
specific  organs  a  certain  amount  of  blood  which  is 
needed  elsewhere  for  defensive  purposes.  Hence 
the  dry  mouth,  the  arrested  gastric  action,  the  im- 
potence induced  by  fear. 

As  the  blood  must  circulate  freely  in  the  en- 
dangered organism  and  absorb  as  much  oxygen  as 
possible,  the  heart  beats  are  increased  and  so  is  the 
rate  of  respiration.  As  a  larger  amount  of  energy 
has  to  be  expended,  the  glycogen  (sugar)  stored  up 
in  the  liver  must  be  released  into  the  blood  stream, 
after  the  fashion  of  a  motorist  who  "steps  on  the 
gas"  in  order  to  climb  a  steep  hill;  if  a  wound  be 
sustained,  adrenin  is  mixed  with  the  blood  causing 
it  to  coagulate  more  quickly  and  close  the  wound; 
finally  the  hair  must  be  raised,  affording  to  certain 
animals,  such  as  cats  and  dogs,  a  certain  amount 
of  protection  against  teeth  and  claws  and  surround- 
[38] 


The  Vital  Urges 


ing  the  body,  in  the  case  of  porcupines  and  hedge- 
hogs, with  an  impassable  barrier  of  sharp  daggers. 

The  sudden  voiding  of  the  bowels  and  bladder 
caused  by  fright  is  another  emergency  measure 
taken  by  the  sympathetic  division.  Empty  bowels 
and  an  empty  bladder  present  a  more  favourable 
condition  in  the  case  of  deep  abdominal  injuries, 
while  the  same  organs,  if  full,  might  cause  compli- 
cations. 

The  activities  of  the  sympathetic  division  corre- 
spond to  what  we  may  call  the  safety  urge,  while 
the  cranial  division  which  promotes  nutrition  and 
assimilation  would  correspond  to  the  food-ego- 
power  urge  and  the  sacral  division  to  the  sex  urge. 

We  may  notice  that  the  nerves  of  ego  and  sex 
work  in  unison. 

The  two  divisions  of  the  autonomic  system  are 
not  always  balanced  with  perfect  accuracy  and  one 
of  them  is  bound  to  predominate.  This  will  enable 
us  to  distinguish  roughly  three  "nervous"  types. 

The  type  in  which  the  positive  activities  which 
build  up  the  individual  and  further  the  continuance 
of  the  race  are  not  hampered  by  the  negative  activi- 
ties of  the  sympathetic  except  in  emergencies. 

This  is  the  type  we  may  justly  consider  as  nor- 
mal. 

The  second  type  is  one  in  which  the  positive 

[39] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


activities  are  so  strong  that  they  cannot  be  checked 
in  emergencies  by  the  safety  nerves.  When  the 
personality  is  overwhelmed  by  the  cranio-sacral 
division,  that  is  by  the  ego  and  sex  urges,  the 
individual  is  unadaptive  and  unsocial.  Criminal, 
gluttonous,  obscene  imbeciles  belong  to  that  type 
for  which  the  terms  vagotonic  has  been  suggested. 

In  the  third  type,  or  sympathicotonic  type,  the 
sympathetic  division  functions  in  and  out  of  season, 
flashing  danger  signals  when  there  is  no  danger  and 
holding  back  the  natural  cravings  for  nutrition, 
self-expression,  acquisition,  power,  reproduction, 
etc.  Neurotics  suffering  from  anxiety,  obsessions, 
phobias,  nervous  indigestion,  psychic  impotence, 
etc.,  belong  to  this  type. 

A  very  simple  test  has  been  devised  to  determine 
to  what  type  a  subject  belongs.  It  is  known  as  the 
Aschner  test.  It  is  based  on  the  fact  that  the  ends 
of  both  divisions,  the  cranial  and  the  sympathetic 
divisions,  can  be  reached  and  stimulated  by  pres- 
sure on  the  pupil. 

The  cranial  division  increases  the  heart  beats  and 
the  sympathetic  division  decreases  them.  By 
applying  the  same  stimulation  to  both  divisions,  the 
one  which  is  more  powerful  will  react  more  easily 
than  the  other.  If  after  pressing  on  the  eyeballs 
for  half  a  minute,  the  initial  pulse,  let  us  say  90, 
[40] 


Ghosts  from  the  Past 


has  been  reduced  to  about  80,  the  patient  is  prob- 
ably normal.  If  the  pulse  rate  has  been  decreased 
by  more  than  10  or  12  beats,  the  patient  is  vago- 
tonic,  and  if  the  pulse  rate  has  remained  unchanged 
or  has  been  increased  the  patient  is  sympathicotonic. 

A  study  of  the  autonomic  system  enables  us  to 
visualize  complexes  as  defensive  actions  of  the  sym- 
pathetic division  or  safety  urge  which  were  initiated 
at  some  past  time,  generally  in  infancy  when  stimuli 
are  likely  to  produce  the  deepest  impression  and 
which  continue  to  be  performed  when  no  actual 
danger  has  to  be  warded  off,  or  in  emergencies 
which  are  not  real  emergencies  but  appear  as  such 
owing  to  wrong  associations. 

A  child,  frightened  unwisely,  may  all  his  life 
show  defence  and  fear  reactions,  which  means  that 
the  nerves  of  his  sympathetic  division  will  con- 
stantly interfere  with  his  digestion,  his  heart  action, 
his  intestinal  peristalsis,  his  sex  life. 

A  child  hurt  by  a  doctor  with  a  black  beard,  a 
classical  case  in  psychoanalytic  literature,  uncon- 
sciously associated  in  later  life  all  men  with  black 
beards  with  the  man  who  hurt  him  once  and  when 
meeting  such  a  man  suffered  from  arterial  tension 
connected  with  fright. 

Experiments  made  on  dogs  illustrate  well  the 
mechanism  of  association. 

[41] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


A  dog  was  submitted  to  a  delicate  operation 
whereby  the  gastric  juice  secreted  by  his  stomach 
would  run  into  a  graduated  tube.  For  several  days 
a  bell  was  rung  every  time  the  dog  was  given  food. 
To  the  sight  of  food  there  always  corresponded  a 
flow  of  gastric  juice.  One  day  the  bell  was  rung 
but  no  food  was  offered  to  the  animal.  In  spite 
of  the  absence  of  food,  gastric  juice  began  to  trickle 
into  the  test  tube.  A  "bell  association"  had  been 
created  in  the  dog's  organism.  In  other  words,  as 
for  several  days  the  sound  of  a  bell  had  been  con- 
nected with  the  sight  and  taste  of  food,  his  auto- 
nomic  nerves  promoted  the  flow  of  gastric  juice 
as  soon  as  the  bell  rang. 

A  study  of  the  autonomic  activities  sheds  a  new 
light  upon  many  actions  which  at  the  present  day 
are  considered  as  voluntary  and  subjected  to  criti- 
cism or  praised  from  a  purely  ethical  point  of  view 
based  upon  the  distinction  between  body  and  mind. 

A  sixty  candle  power  bulb  should  not  be  criti- 
cized for  carrying  an  amount  of  electrical  power 
inferior  to  that  which  can  flow  through  a  hundred 
candle  bulb. 

A  coward  is  not  a  coward  because  he  wishes  to 
run  away,  but  because  his  sympathetic  nerves  pro- 
moting flight  are  especially  sensitive  to  fright 
stimuli  which  in  other  men  would  produce  no  re- 
[42] 


The  Training  of  Nerves 


action  or  a  reaction  of  fight.  As  Jacques  Loeb 
would  put  it,  a  coward  runs  in  the  direction  where 
his  legs  carry  him.  As  the  unscientific  layman 
would  express  it,  the  coward  "loses  his  nerve"  or 
"is  all  nerves"  or  "cannot  control  his  nerves." 

Punishing  a  coward  and  insulting  him  will  not 
make  him  a  brave  man.  It  may  compel  him  to 
pretend  for  a  time  that  he  is  brave,  after  which  he 
may  succumb  to  shell-shock  when  his  cravings  for 
safety,  long  repressed,  assert  themselves  violently 
and  abnormally. 

But  he  need  not  remain  a  coward  and  can  be 
trained  to  master  his  fear  by  analyzing  it  and  by 
disintegrating  the  absurd  associations  which  set  his 
organism  in  flight  when  no  dangerous  emergency 
exists. 

A  coward  with  a  well  developed  intelligence  can 
be  made,  through  education,  as  indifferent  to  cer- 
tain fear  stimuli  as  other  people  can  be  made  in- 
different to  some  apparently  alarming  symptoms  of 
sickness. 

For  example:  any  one  taking  the  typhoid  vaccine 
will  after  the  first  injection  feel  dreadfully  sick. 
He  will  develop  violent  fever,  suffer  from  head- 
aches, thirst,  palpitations,  nausea,  he  will  feel  very 
weak,  etc.,  in  other  words,  he  will,  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  experience  most  of  the  symptoms  of  the 

[43] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


disease  against  which  the  vaccine  is  to  protect  him. 
Duly  warned  by  a  physician,  the  patient  will  not 
worry  over  those  disturbances  which  are  "ex- 
pected," as  suppuration  is  expected  after  vaccina- 
tion for  smallpox. 

The  patient  knows  what  is  causing  his  malaise 
and  what  its  duration  shall  be.  While  he  could 
not  very  well  "enjoy"  the  situation,  he  resigns  him- 
self to  it  as  to  something  temporary  and  unavoid- 
able. 

On  the  other  hand,  should  a  careless  physician 
fail  to  warn  the  patient  of  the  effects  of  the  first 
hypodermic  dose,  the  patient  would  add  to  the 
unpleasant  condition  induced  by  the  vaccine  a  deep 
worry,  a  fear  of  possible  complications  and  perhaps 
devise  unnecessary  plans  for  emergency  action, 
thereby  affecting  his  heart  beats,  his  gastric  and 
intestinal  activities  and  so  on. 

Knowing  to  what  type  he  belongs  is  as  necessary 
for  a  human  being  as  knowing,  for  instance, 
whether  one  of  his  legs  is  shorter  than  the  other. 
A  cripple  in  ignorance  of  the  disparity  of  his  legs, 
would  gather  the  impression  that  the  road  he  was 
travelling  was  strewn  with  ruts  and  obstructions. 
The  longer  leg  would  seemingly  encounter  number- 
less obstacles  while  the  shorter  would  be  constantly 
descending  into  holes. 
[44] 


Know  Thyself 


The  man  with  a  vagotonic  tendency  whose  ego 
and  sex  urges  are  apt  to  disregard  the  warnings 
of  his  safety  urge  and  the  man  with  a  sympathico- 
tonic  tendency  whose  sympthetic  division  is  con- 
stantly raising  the  danger  flag  are  bound  to  have 
very  distorted  impressions  of  their  mental  states 
and  of  their  environment. 

Knowing  themselves  better,  they  can  discount 
considerably  such  deceptive  impressions  and  there- 
by correct  their  behaviour. 

Those  called  upon  to  judge  them  can  also  by 
understanding  better  their  nervous  mechanism,  help 
them  to  conform  to  standard  conduct. 

Even  the  perfectly  normal  man  can  derive  much 
comfort  from  knowing  positively  that  he  is  normal 
at  times  when,  in  a  crisis  or  emergency,  he  might 
conceive  doubts  as  to  his  condition.  A  knowledge 
of  the  functioning  of  one's  autonomic  system  is  at 
all  times  of  great  assistance  in  remaining  normal. 

That  knowledge  also  enables  one  to  adopt  or  to 
avoid  for  scientific,  that  is,  plausible  and  compel- 
ling reasons,  certain  forms  of  behaviour. 

The  following  observation  made  on  dogs  by 
Pavlof  teaches  a  lesson  which  should  be  remem- 
bered by  every  human  being. 

A  dog  submitted  to  the  surgical  operation  I  men- 
tioned previously  secreted  some  seventy  cubic  centi- 

[45] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


metres  of  gastric  juice  when  fed  a  certain  amount 
of  meat.  One  day,  a  cat  was  brought  into  the 
laboratory  while  he  was  partaking  of  his  meal  and 
aroused  his  anger.  On  that  occasion,  the  amount 
of  gastric  juice  which  flowed  into  the  test  tube  was 
just  one  tenth  that  accompanying  a  peaceful  undis- 
Mirbed  meal.  Anger  and  fear  had  raised  the 
danger  signal  in  his  organism  and  prepared  the  dog 
for  fight  or  flight,  but  not  for  the  enjoyment  of  a 
meal. 

A  quarrel  at  the  dinner  table  affects  human 
beings  as  the  sight  of  a  cat  affected  our  dog.  Their 
flow  of  gastric  juice  is  stopped  or  considerably  re- 
duced and  whatever  food  they  take  into  their 
stomachs  would  linger  in  that  organ  much  longer 
than  it  should  normally.  The  result  will  be  some 
form  of  "nervous  indigestion,"  perhaps  nausea  and 
in  extreme  cases,  vomiting. 

Observations  of  a  similar  order  were  made  on  a 
small  boy  suffering  from  a  gastric  fistula  which 
allowed  gastric  juice  to  flow  out  of  his  body.  When 
the  boy  chewed  pleasant  food,  the  flow  was  copious, 
whereas  the  chewing  of  some  unpleasant  or  in- 
different substance  was  not  followed  by  any  se- 
cretion. 

The  flow  of  gastric  juice  is  not  induced  solely, 
as  many  people  think,  by  the  pleasant  taste  of  food. 
[46] 


The  Value  of  Pleasure 


The  mere  sight  of  appetizing  aliments  is  sufficient 
to  start  the  digestive  fluids. 

Hence,  a  meal  served  in  an  attractive  dining 
room,  on  clean  linen,  in  dainty  dishes,  with  flowers 
on  the  table,  in  a  peaceful,  soothing  atmosphere,  to 
the  tune  of  caressing,  unemotional  music,  is  likely 
to  be  digested  more  easily  than  food  served  in 
slovenly,  noisy  surroundings. 

This  applies  to  almost  every  experience  in  life. 

Pleasant  memories  of  gratifying  happenings 
create  durable  associations,  like  the  food-bell  asso- 
ciation which  had  such  an  appetizing  effect  on 
Pavlof's  dog.  Unpleasant  memories  produce  per- 
haps even  more  lasting  effects  of  the  opposite  char- 
acter and  are  responsible  for  a  thousand  "nervous" 
ills. 

Every  psychological  theory  will  have  to  be  re- 
vised according  to  the  rather  recent  findings  of 
scientists  touching  the  autonomic  functions.  While 
space  does  not  allow  us  to  dwell  at  length  on  that 
aspect  of  the  subject,  we  may  say  a  few  words  on 
the  new  interpretation  of  will-power  which  can  be 
based  upon  the  study  of  the  autonomic  nervous  sys- 
tem. 

The  vagotonic,  whose  "animal"  activities  can 
hardly  be  checked  by  a  weaker  sympathetic  divi- 
sion, is  called  "a  creature  of  instinct,"  "led  by  his 

[47] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


cravings,"  "subservient  to  his  lower  nature,"  "lack- 
ing in  will-power,"  etc. 

He  whose  sympathetic  system  acts  in  all  emer- 
gencies and  in  emergencies  only,  that  is,  does  not 
create  absurd,  unconscious  reasons  for  illogical  be- 
haviour, is  credited  with  a  great  amount  of  will- 
power. 

He  whose  sympathetic  system  acts  in  and  out 
of  season,  overpowering  his  ego  and  sex  urges, 
creating  emergencies  and  raising  obstacles,  is  con- 
stantly "nervous,"  vacillating,  considering  one 
course  and  then  another,  "unable  to  make  up  his 
mind." 

Education  undertaken  by  a  trained  psychologist, 
not  by  a  disciplinarian,  may  alter  the  first  type  by 
developing  in  his  sympathetic  division  a  fear  of  the 
absolute  privation  which  may  be  the  consequence 
of  vagotonic  indulgence. 

The  third  type  also  can  be  trained  to  recognize  a 
true  emergency  from  an  imaginary  one  and  to 
gauge  accurately  the  size  of  the  obstacles  rising  in 
his  path. 

Neither  type  should  be  dealt  with  by  jailers  or 
judges.  Neither  should  be  held  responsible  for 
behaviour  due  to  weakness  or  self-deception.  Both 
should,  if  their  conduct  is  socially  intolerable,  be 
restrained  and  educated.  Those  whose  nervous 
[48] 


Ethical  Considerations 


system  appears  inadaptable  should  remain  the 
wards  of  the  state  and  be  considered  as  victims  of 
organic  maladjustment  for  which  they  are  in  no 
wise  responsible. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  subject  of  nerves  cannot  be  well  understood  unless 
the  reader  makes  himself  familiar  with  the  autonomic 
nervous  system  which  in  the  majority  of  medical  books 
is  designated  as  the  sympathetic  system. 

The  most  important  publication  on  the  subject  is  H. 
Higier's  "Vegetative  Neurology"  (Nervous  and  Mental 
Disease  Pub.  Co.)  which  is  very  technical.  Consult  also 
M.  Laignel  Lavastine's  "The  Internal  Secretions  and  the 
Nervous  System"  (Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co.) 
and  Cannon's  previously  mentioned  work. 

G.  V.  N.  Dearborn's  'The  Influence  of  Joy"  (Little 
Brown)  and  L.  E.  Emerson's  "Nervousness"  (Little 
Brown),  are  two  small  books  casting  interesting  side- 
lights on  the  subject. 


[49] 


II.    PROBLEMS  OF  CHILDHOOD 


CHAPTER  I.     CHILDHOOD  FIXATIONS 

The  seed  of  all  mental  disturbances  is  sown  in 
our  childhood  years.  Whether  we  hold  with  Freud 
that  childhood  memories,  habits  and  repressions 
disturb  our  mental  balance  in  later  years,  or  assume 
with  Adler  that  the  neurotic  adult  simply  draws  upon 
his  childhood  memories  for  the  woof  of  his  fancies, 
the  fact  remains  that  one's  childhood,  directly  or 
indirectly,  determines  the  content  and  form  of  one's 
neurosis. 

The  problems  of  childhood  are  therefore  the 
problems  of  the  adult.  To  a  normal,  happy  child- 
hood corresponds  a  normal,  happy  adulthood. 
We  cannot  state  that  to  an  abnormal,  unhappy 
childhood  there  always  corresponds  an  abnormal 
unhappy  adulthood,  for  most  people  manage  to 
remain  normal  regardless  of  what  they  do  or  have 
to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  others;  but  we  can  state 
that  to  every  abnormality  observed  in  an  adult  cor- 
responds some  abnormal  situation  which  dominated 
the  subject's  childhood. 

The  most  fateful  complication  in  a  child's  life 
and  one  whose  consequences  are  recognized  by 

[53] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


analysts  of  all  schools  without  any  exception,  is  what 
Freud  has  designated  as  the  Oedipus  complex, 
or  the  excessive  attachment  of  a  child  for  the  parent 
of  the  opposite  sex,  resulting  in  a  more  or  less  vio- 
lent dislike  of  the  parent  of  the  same  sex. 

Freud  called  it  the  Oedipus  Complex  as  an  illu- 
sion to  the  well  known  legend  of  Oedipus,  King  of 
Thebes,  who  killed  his  father  Laius  and  married  his 
mother  Jocasta. 

Students  of  ancient  religions  and  folk  lore  have 
noticed  that  the  conflict  between  father  and  son, 
mother  and  daughter,  constitutes  the  substance  of 
thousands  of  mythological  or  popular  legends. 
Psychiatrists  have  observed  it  re-appearing  in  many 
forms  of  mental  derangement. 

Freud  has  stated  that  such  an  excessive  attach- 
ment or  "fixation"  is  unconsciously  incestuous. 

The  Swiss  school  of  analysts  would  rather  believe 
that  the  fixation  is  purely  symbolical,  the  boy  se- 
lecting his  mother,  the  girl,  her  father,  as  an  ideal 
of  authority,  intelligence,  power,  etc. 

Adler,  of  Vienna,  on  the  other  hand,  believes 
that  the  incest  situation  is  imagined  by  the  neurotic 
as  one  of  the  components  of  his  regression  to  a 
period  of  his  life  when  he  was  absolutely  dependent 
on  one  of  the  parents  and  did  not  have  to  face 
life  and  its  struggles. 
[54] 


Imitation  Versus  Heredity 


None  of  those  three  views  should  exclude  the 
others.  There  may  be  a  slightly  sensuous  attach- 
ment in  certain  cases,  encouraged  by  caresses  of  the 
mother  for  the  son  and  of  the  father  for  the  daugh- 
ter, in  which  there  is  a  slight  amount  of  veiled 
sexuality,  each  of  the  parents  showing  preference 
for  the  child  of  the  opposite  sex.  But  in  many 
cases,  Jung's  and  Adler's  views  appear  very  plaus- 
ible. 

To  those  three  hypotheses  we  may  add  a  fourth 
one:  Imitation  is  probably  the  most  potent  factor 
in  human  and  animal  life.  Like  instinct,  it  prob- 
ably resolves  itself  into  a  set  of  little  understood 
physical,  chemical  and  nervous  phenomena,  some 
of  which  have  been  elucidated  only  recently. 

We  are  what  we  are  because  we  have  imitated 
some  man  or  woman  whose  mannerisms,  attitudes, 
mode  of  speech,  and  consequently,  whose  emotional 
life  we  have  unconsciously  reproduced. 

As  in  the  first  years  of  our  life  we  have  no  one 
to  imitate  but  our  parents,  our  parents  are  likely 
to  become  our  most  obsessing  model  or  ideal. 

This  phenomenon  presents  many  dangers.  The 
normal  child  would  be  one  who,  up  to  the  time  of 
puberty,  had  imitated  both  parents  without  showing 
much  partiality  (admitting  of  course  that  the 
parents  Sarmonized  well  enough  not  to  create  a  con- 

[55] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


flict  in  the  child's  mind) ;  who  at  puberty,  would 
imitate  the  parent  of  the  same  sex,  without  exhibit- 
ing any  hostility  toward  the  parent  of  the  opposite 
sex;  and  who  finally  would  select  secondary  imita- 
tion objects  outside  of  the  family  circle,  thus  build- 
ing up  a  consistent  and  original  personality. 

The  parental  traits  would  be  there,  father  and 
mother  contributing  varied  qualities,  and  outsiders 
furnishing  pleasing  variations  upon  the  parental 
type,  introducing  into  the  blend  no  discordant 
features. 

There  are  too  many  cases,  however,  in  which  that 
happy  situation  is  disturbed.  Sickness  in  child- 
hood may  bring  one  child  under  the  constant  influ- 
ence of  one  parent  to  the  almost  complete  exclusion 
of  the  other;  and  so  may  the  death  or  continued 
absence  of  one  of  the  parents.  One  of  the  parents 
may  for  rather  regrettable  reasons,  attract  and 
amuse  the  child;  a  neurotic,  eccentric  parent  will 
have  more  influence  upon  his  children  than  his 
normal  mate  (circus  freaks  attract  children  more 
than  athletes),  etc. 

Children  coming  home  from  the  circus  almost 
invariably  imitate  the  freaks  or  the  clowns,  but 
even  Freud  would  fail  to  drag  a  sexual  explanation 
into  that  "fixation"  which  is  often  of  long  duration 
and  incredibly  powerful,  considering  the  short  time 
[56] 


The  Family  Romance 


in  which  the  children  were  exposed  to  the  influence 
of  their  favourites. 

Three  hours  at  the  circus  may  mean  several 
weeks  of  attempts  at  performing  certain  stunts.  A 
little  boy  of  my  acquaintance  walked  for  several 
weeks  like  Charlie  Chaplin  after  seeing  him  once. 

In  many  cases,  the  Oedipus  situation  resolves 
itself  then  into  an  exaggerated  imitation  of  one 
parent  by  the  child. 

A  boy  having  selected  his  mother  as  the  most 
perfect  model,  is  bound  to  dislike  his  father  who, 
not  only  is  so  unlike  her,  but  wields  too  much  influ- 
ence over  her. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  selected  his  father  as 
his  exclusive  model,  he  would  dislike  his  mother, 
who  is  unlike  the  father  and  dominates  him  in  cer- 
tain respects. 

The  family  romance  of  the  neurotic  girl  would 
be  similar  to  that  of  the  neurotic  boy. 

Imitation  explains  as  much  as  sexuality  and  rids 
certain  details  of  the  romance  of  their  apparently 
sexual  aspect. 

The  boy  with  a  fixation  on  his  mother,  who  con- 
stantly fondles  her  and  has  to  be  taken  into  her 
bed,  is  not  attracted  by  any  of  his  mother's  physical 
qualities.  He  is,  in  all  respects  but  one,  a  female 
who  feels  no  embarrassment  in  close  contact  with 

[57] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


another  female  and  does  not  expect  her  to  feel  any 
embarrassment  either.  The  sexual  fate  of  such 
boys,  who  later  in  life  are  very  indifferent  to 
women  and  not  infrequently  passive  homosexuals, 
confirms  the  suspicion  that  it  is  rather  imitation  of 
the  mother  and  self -identification  with  her  than  re- 
pressed incest  cravings  which  dominate  their  be- 
haviour. 

The  many  male  and  female  neurotics  who  are 
attracted  solely  to  married  men  and  women  are 
subjects  with  strong  fixations  who  seek,  not  pri- 
marily one  physical  or  mental  type  for  which  they 
have  a  special  affinity,  but  a  situation,  which  in 
their  childhood  years  was  normal  and  habitual. 
The  father  they  loved  had  a  wife,  the  mother  they 
loved  had  a  husband. 

Their  jealousy  of  their  lover's  wife  or  of  their 
mistress's  husband  is  what  their  dislike  of  the  un- 
loved parent  was,  not  sexual  but  egotistical. 

The  boy  with  a  mother  fixation  and  the  girl  with 
a  father  fixation,  will  not  only  try  to  be  like  the 
favourite  parent,  but  will  on  all  occasions  try  to  be 
as  unlike  the  unloved  parent  as  possible.  (Clergy- 
men's sons.) 

One  boy  I  have  observed  was  the  son  of  a  pro- 
fessional man,  very  conservative,  prudish  and  snob- 
bish to  a  degree. 
[58] 


A  Restless  Type 


His  mother  fixation  had  been  nursed  along  by 
too  much  petting  and  fondling.  At  sixteen  he  still 
played  in  mother's  bed  mornings  and  evenings.  At 
eighteen  he  showed  absolutely  no  interest  in  girls 
and  compared  every  girl  he  knew  to  his  mother  in 
a  way  most  disadvantageous  to  the  girl. 

After  a  severe  crisis  at  the  time  of  puberty  when 
he  once  attempted  suicide,  his  opposition  to  every 
one  of  his  father's  ideas  and  plans  for  his  future 
began  to  manifest  itself  very  clearly. 

The  father  was  extremely  conservative;  the  son 
embraced  readily  all  radical  beliefs.  The  father 
was  conventional,  the  son  unconventional  in  his 
behaviour  and  speech,  and  very  slovenly  in  his  way 
of  dressing.  The  father  was  very  settled  in  his 
habits,  the  son  led  the  most  irregular  life,  sleeping 
all  day  and  loafing  all  night,  having  his  meals  at  all 
times  of  the  day  or  night. 

His  revolt  against  the  father-image,  symbolical 
of  authority,  caused  him  to  be  involved  in  difficul- 
ties with  various  teachers  and  finally  to  leave 
college. 

In  his  sedulous  avoidance  of  the  father  type  he 
shunned  all  professional  people  and  spent  most  of 
his  time  with  menials  and  labourers. 

His  distaste  for  work,  which  prevented  him  from 
holding  a  position  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a 

[59] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


time,  was  in  part  an  imitation  of  the  comparative 
idleness  of  his  middle  class  mother,  financially  de- 
pendent on  his  father,  and  in  part  an  expression  of 
dislike  of  his  employers  symbolizing  the  father's 
authority,  and  also  a  way  of  "getting  even"  with 
his  father. 

His  constant  schemes  for  getting-rick-quick  and 
his  passion  for  gambling  were  attempted  flights 
from  reality  and  a  search  for  the  line  of  least  ef- 
fort. 

The  struggle  between  his  normal  and  his  abnor- 
mal tendencies  revealed  itself  in  his  variable  atti- 
tude to  his  mother  whom  he  at  times  overwhelmed 
with  caresses  and  at  times  treated  very  scornfully. 

Another  neurotic  with  a  decided  fixation  on  his 
mother  was  unable  to  enjoy  any  food  which  had 
not  been  prepared  by  her  or  according  to  her 
recipes.  Dishes  which  had  never  been  served  in 
his  home  during  his  childhood  repelled  him  and 
when  courtesy  compelled  him  to  eat  of  them,  he 
generally  developed  nausea  and  vomiting.  In  this 
case,  the  mother  fixation  had  not  had  any  crippling 
effects  as  far  as  sexual  cravings  were  concerned. 
He  consorted  with  many  women  of  different  types 
but  selected  for  his  wife  a  woman  of  the  mother 
type  whom  he  constantly  taunted  by  instituting  un- 
pleasant comparisons  between  her  and  his  mother. 
[60] 


Homosexual  Fixations 


This  man  always  voiced  a  frank  hatred  of  his 
father  and  like  the  preceding  type  indulged  con- 
stantly in  dreams  of  get-rich-quick  schemes  which 
his  restlessness  never  allowed  to  mature. 

Besides  heterosexual  fixations  or  fixations  on  the 
parent  of  the  opposite  sex,  we  must  consider  homo- 
sexual fixations  or  fixations  on  the  parent  of  the 
same  sex. 

They  do  not  lead  to  conflicts  as  acute  as  those 
precipitated  by  the  Oedipus  situation.  The  boy 
with  a  father  fixation  is  not  impelled  by  his  dislike 
of  his  mother  to  seek  forms  of  behaviour  which  are 
eccentric  or  absurd,  for,  being  a  male,  he  will  on 
all  occasions  act  in  ways  different  from  hers.  His 
dislike  will  be  due  to  her  dissimilarity  to  his  ideal, 
which  he  will  consider  as  an  inferiority. 

Very  different  from  the  boy  with  a  mother  fixa- 
tion, the  boy  with  a  father  fixation  will  not  shun 
women  but  he  will  despise  them  and  fear  them. 
They  will  attract  him  as  they  attract  the  father  he 
imitates  but  he  will  be  more  or  less  ashamed  of 
yielding  to  their  attraction.  He  will  love  them 
and  torture  them  and  the  origin  of  many  cases  of 
cruel  sadism  is  generally  to  be  traced  back  to  such 
a  situation. 

Both  forms  of  fixation  have  a  crippling  influence 
on  a  human  being's  life.  Clinging  too  closely  to 

[61] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


an  ideal,  he  has  a  tendency  to  disparage  all  con- 
ditions which  differ  from  the  conditions  under 
which  he  acquired  a  fixation. 

The  man  with  a  mother  fixation  will  regret  the 
days  when  he  still  was  his  mother's  little  boy;  when 
life's  emergencies  threaten  him  with  defeat  he  may 
regress  to  the  childhood  level  on  which  he  then 
lived. 

The 'man  with  a  father  fixation  will  follow  the 
same  deceptive  line  of  least  effort;  there  will  be  a 
difference,  however.  While  the  man  with  a  mother 
fixation  is  likely  to  be  a  rebel,  the  man  with  a 
father  fixation  is  generally  a  crusty  conservative, 
a  neophobiac,  ranting  over  the  good  old  days,  old 
fashioned  in  every  way,  at  times  more  conservative 
even  than  his  father,  for  his  father  may  have  grown 
mentally  while  he  lingers  in  the  stage  during  which 
he  acquired  his  fixation  and  still  imitates  his  father 
as  his  father  was  when  he  himself  was  from  five  to 
fifteen  years  old. 

A  conflict  between  the  parents  results  often  in  a 
severe  conflict  in  the  child's  organism.  Parents 
living  in  disharmony  lack  fairness,  measure  and 
dignity.  Their  hostility  to  each  other  makes  them 
repellent  to  the  child  who  is  constantly  in  doubt 
as  to  whom  to  imitate.  In  certain  cases  a  fixation 
[62] 


Results  of  Family  Strife 


on  one  of  the  parents  may  have  disastrous  effects. 

B.  M.'s  parents  never  agreed  and  finally  separ- 
ated. B.  M.  realized  her  mother's  mental  infer- 
iority and  drew  farther  and  farther  away  from  her 
in  childhood.  She  was  extremely  attracted  by  her 
neurotic  father  whose  lack  of  kindness  and  erratic 
ways,  on  the  other  hand,  repelled  her.  Her  psy- 
chology has  ever  since  been  complicated  by  the  fol- 
lowing speculation:  "I  shall  do  this  because  my 
father  would  have  done  it  but  it  is  wrong  for  me 
to  do  it  for  my  father  was  an  unworthy  type."  The 
result  has  been  acute  hysterical  suffering. 

I  shall  mention  in  the  chapter  on  the  Love  Life 
the  various  perversions  due  to  maladjustments  of 
the  fixation  type  in  childhood. 

From  a  consideration  of  the  mental  growth  of 
the  child,  one  is  forced  to  accept  the  conclusion 
that  the  presence  of  a  male  and  a  female  in  the 
household  is  absolutely  necessary  if  the  offspring 
is  to  be  normal  in  later  life.  The  child  brought 
up  by  only  one  parent  is  likely  to  be  one-sided  or 
perverse. 

Affectionate  parents  are  a  source  of  great  danger 
for  their  children  and  so  are  those  who  do  not  know 
how  to  restrain  their  children's  affection  when  it 
gets  out  of  bounds. 

[63] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Indifferent  parents  or  the  removal  of  the  par- 
ents by  death  in  the  child's  infancy  cripple  the 
child  in  another  way. 

Egotism  of  the  positive,  progressive,  creative 
type  is  the  most  valuable  human  trait,  the  trait 
which  differentiates  man  from  the  animals.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  self-love,  self-confidence,  self-re- 
liance is  absolutely  necessary  in  life. 

The  child  whom  no  parent  has  praised  and  who 
has  been  treated  like  an  intruder,  the  orphan  com- 
mitted to  some  institution  where  teachers  or  keepers, 
however  kind  they  may  be,  cannot  lavish  on  fifty 
or  a  hundred  children  the  love  which  individual 
parents  would  lavish  on  each  of  them  separately, 
suffer  from  a  certain  sense  of  inferiority  which 
often  leads  to  negativism. 

Such  children  do  not  know  that  they  are  impor- 
tant for  they  have  never  seemed  important  to  any 
one.  When  herded  in  institutions  they  only  have 
distant  models  for  imitation,  the  few  adults  they 
could  imitate  being  strangers  separated  from  them 
by  a  wall  of  indifference.  The  result  is  often  a 
stunting  in  mental  and  physical  growth  due  to  the 
wholesale  imitation  of  children  by  children. 

The  solution  of  the  fixation  problem  will  not  be 
within  our  reach  until  the  phenomenon  of  imitation 
has  been  studied  more  completely.  At  present  a 
[64] 


An  Unsolved  Problem 


few  scattered  observations  made  by  biologists  con- 
stitute the  only  material  at  our  disposal.  Those 
few  and  unrelated  facts,  however,  are  enough  to 
make  us  suspect  the  tremendous  importance  of 
imitation  as  a  factor  in  human  development. 


[65] 


CHAPTER    II.     THE    SEXUAL    ENLIGHTEN- 
MENT OF  CHILDREN 

One  of  the  statements  made  by  Freud  and  which 
exposed  him  to  the  bitterest  criticism  on  the  part 
of  hostile  or  ill-informed  opponents,  was  that  in 
children,  even  for  the  tenderest  age,  the  sexual 
life  attains  a  much  greater  degree  of  development 
than  was  generally  conceded  and  that  its  growth 
is  gradual  and  continuous  from  the  day  of  birth. 
Puberty  is  the  culmination  of  that  progressive  ripen- 
ing instead  of  being,  as  it  is  considered  by  many,  the 
sudden,  unprepared  outburst  of  the  sexual  instinct. 

Sexual,  urinary  and  fecal  activities  being  con- 
trolled by  the  same  nerves  develop  along  parallel 
lines.  All  of  them,  however,  are  submitted  to  a 
severe  regulation  which  in  the  case  of  sex  amounts 
to  almost  complete  repression. 

In  probably  many  more  cases  than  parents  and 
nurses  are  willing  to  admit,  there  is  a  certain 
amount  of  sexual  self -gratification  indulged  in  by 
children  between  the  ages  of  three  and  five,  that 
is,  long  before  puberty.  Much  of  it  certainly 
escapes  observation. 
[66] 


Where  Do  Children  Come  From? 


Whatever  of  it  is  observed  is  usually  considered 
by  the  average  parent  as  a  manifestation  of  some 
"vicious"  tendency,  and  is  repressed  either  by 
threats  and  punishment  or  by  mechanical  means 
such  as  binding  the  children's  hands  at  night,  etc. 

The  general  opinion  at  the  present  day  in  scien- 
tific circles  is  that  infantile  onanism  is  simply  one 
of  nature's  primitive  ways  of  developing  the  child's 
sexual  powers,  a  process  to  be  watched  closely  by 
the  parents  and  stopped  if  indulged  in  excessively 
by  immobilizing  the  child's  hands,  but  under  no 
circumstances  to  be  repressed  by  threats  or  punish- 
ment. 

To  that  period  of  infantile  onanism  corresponds 
naturally  one  of  intense  and  stubborn  curiosity  on 
the  part  of  the  child  about  matters  pertaining  to 
reproduction.  That  curiosity  is  generally  brought 
to  its  climax  by  the  arrival  of  a  baby  either  in  the 
family  or  in  a  house  of  the  neighbourhood  and  the 
child  will  have  no  peace  until  he  knows  "where 
babies  come  from." 

What  shall  parents  do  when  such  a  question  is 
put  to  them?  The  problem  is  simpler  and  yet  more 
complicated  than  it  seems  at  first. 

The  question  is  not:  "Must  children  be  told?" 
but  "Who  shall  tell  them  and  how?" 

If  every  grown  up  will  be  honest  with  himself 

[67] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


he  will  have  to  confess  that  as  soon  as  he  attended 
a  kindergarten  or  school  his  sexual  enlighten- 
ment^) was  begun  by  the  other  children. 

Children  cannot  be  kept  in  absolute  ignorance 
about  sexual  matters  because  if  the  parents  do  not 
instruct  them  some  one  else  will.  Some  one  else 
always  does. 

The  choice  is  then  as  to  between  correct,  seri- 
ous, sympathetic  information,  presenting  sex  as 
a  tremendous  fact  of  capital  importance  to  the  in- 
dividual and  the  race,  a  great  source  of  happiness 
and  misery  and,  on  the  other  hand,  whispered  gos- 
sip of  the  most  fantastic  type,  dealt  out  by  children, 
by  ignorant  or  vicious  adults,  casting  upon  sexual 
phenomena  and  activities  an  obscene,  romantically 
attractive  light,  leading  to  overindulgence,  per- 
versions, obsessions,  etc. 

Sexual  information  imparted  by  the  ignorant 
or  the  vicious  does  not  satisfy  the  child,  does  not 
stop  his  inquiries,  and  only  causes  him  to  seek 
more  details,  to  probe  the  fascinating  fiction  he  has 
heard,  to  build  up  around  it  the  most  dangerous 
form  of  romance. 

Accurate  information  of  a  scientific  type  stops 
inquiries  and  day-dreams  and  vouchsafes  to  the 
child's  mind  the  peace  that  comes  with  the  securing 
of  evidential  facts,  satisfactory  to  one's  reason. 
[68] 


Neurotic  Children 


Mental  rest  is  necessary  to  the  child.  The 
child's  mind  is  so  burdened  with  the  thousand  prob- 
lems of  adaptation  and  conduct,  which  confront  a 
growing  human  being  that  the  added  pressure  of 
sexual  curiosity  has  been  known  in  many  cases  to 
bring  about  neurotic  symptoms. 

Three  children  have  been  studied  at  close  range 
by  some  of  the  greatest  analysts.  One  boy,  little 
Hans,  studied  by  Freud  and  in  whom  sexual  curi- 
osity created  an  obsession  which  caused  him  to 
think  of  the  male  genitals  in  connection  with  almost 
every  person  or  object  he  beheld;  another  boy, 
little  Arpad,  examined  by  Ferenczi  and  who,  fail- 
ing to  secure  information  from  human  beings,  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  fowls  in  the  henyard  and 
identified  himself  with  them;  and  finally,  little 
Anna,  treated  by  Jung,  who  in  her  search  for  a  so- 
lution of  the  birth  problem,  propounded  the  most 
picturesque  theories  of  life  and  death,  lost  all  con- 
fidence in  her  mother  and  almost  merged  in  a  neu- 
rosis. 

The  case  of  the  3^/2  year  old  Arpad,  illus- 
trates well  the  mental  distortions  which,  at  the  time 
when  children  begin  to  develop  a  strong  sexual 
curiosity,  fear  may  cause  in  them,  if  connected  with 
the  subject  of  their  eager  inquiries.  • 

Arpad  and  his  parents  went  to  spend  a  summer 

[69] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


in  the  country  and  stopped  at  a  house  which  had  a 
barn  yard.  Until  then,  Arpad's  behaviour  had 
been  that  of  any  normal,  intelligent  child  of  his 
age.  He  was  interested  in  the  various  children's 
games  and  toys. 

That  summer,  however,  a  complete  change  came 
over  him.  His  toys  were  forsaken  and  he  did  not 
seek  the  company  of  other  children.  From  early 
morning  till  he  was  sent  to  bed,  he  would  spend 
all  his  hours  in  the  poultry  house,  watching  the 
chickens  with  tireless  attention,  imitating  their 
clucking  and  their  motions  and,  when  forcibly  re- 
moved, grew  generally  very  indignant. 

Even  when  led  away  from  the  fowl  run,  he  did 
nothing  but  crow  and  cackle.  He  finally  seemed 
to  abandon  words  to  use  clucks,  addressed  people 
and  answered  their  questions  with  sounds  that  imi- 
tated the  cock's  and  hen's  calls  until  his  parents 
became  quite  concerned  and  feared  he  might  loose 
his  power  of  speech. 

Arpad's  attitude  never  changed  during  the  sum- 
mer. When  his  family  took  him  back  to  town, 
he  resumed  human  speech  but  could  not  be  made 
to  talk  of  anything  but  cocks,  hens,  chicks,  some- 
times of  ducks  and  geese. 

No  toy  appealed  to  him  any  more.  He  would 
all  day  long  form  little  cocks  and  hens  out  of 
[70]  ' 


A  Little  Chanticler 


crumpled  newspaper  and  offer  them  for  sale  to 
imaginary  buyers.  He  then  armed  himself  with 
some  small  object,  called  it  a  knife,  went  to  the 
kitchen  sink  and  declared  that  he  was  cutting  the 
throat  of  his  paper  chickens.  He  imagined  the 
animal  bleeding  and  by  various  contortions  mim- 
icked strikingly  its  agony.  Whenever  the  family 
purchased  live  chickens,  he  showed  extreme  ex- 
citement and  his  greatest  joy  was  to  attend  the 
slaughtering  of  those  fowl.  He  was  however  quite 
afraid  of  live  cocks. 

The  parents  plied  him  with  many  questions  and 
always  elicited  from  him  the  same  story :  once  while 
playing  in  the  chicken  coop  he  wanted  to  micturate 
and  a  rooster  pecked  him  painfully.  The  child 
was  then  two  and  a  half  years  old. 

Brought  into  Ferenczi's  office,  Arpad  at  once 
caught  sight  of  a  little  bronze  representing  a  moun- 
tain cock  and  asked  for  it.  Given  a  pencil 
and  paper  he  proceeded  to  draw  a  picture  of  a 
cock. 

Mental  examination  proved  impossible  and 
Ferenczi  had  to  confine  his  study  to  the  mother's 
observations. 

Early  in  the  morning,  Arpad  would  wake  up  the 
household  with  his  lusty  crowing.  He  sang  con- 
tinually but  all  the  songs  had  to  do  with  chickens. 

[71] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


He  drew  all  day  long  pictures  of  birds  with  large 
beaks. 

His  parents  yielded  to  necessity  and  bought  him 
unbreakable  toys  representing  chickens.  They 
proved  unsatisfactory  as  he  could  not  cut  off  their 
necks.  He  would  sometimes  throw  them  into  the 
oven,  then  take  them  out,  clean  them  and  caress 
them. 

Several  times  he  attempted  to  break  a  vase  which 
had  cocks  painted  on  it.  He  often  expressed  a 
desire  to  put  out  the  eyes  of  live  or  slaughtered 
chickens  he  saw  in  the  house,  and  gave  vent  to  other 
sadistic  and  also  masochistic  tendencies. 

He  identified  himself  and  his  family  with  barn- 
yard fowl  saying  that  his  father  was  the  rooster, 
his  mother  the  hen,  he  himself  a  chicken  and  he 
once  told  a  woman  of  the  neighbourhood  that  when 
he  grew  old  and  became  a  rooster,  he  would  marry 
her,  her  sister,  his  three  cousins  and  the  cook,  and 
perhaps  his  mother  too. 

This  remark  was  the  key  to  the  enigma  of  the 
child's  conduct.  Arpad  had  probably  spied  on 
his  parents  and  the  activities  of  the  barnyard,  the 
sexual  activities  of  cocks  and  hens,  the  laying  of 
eggs,  the  hatching  of  the  little  chicks  had  given 
him  answers  for  all  the  riddles  which  his  parents 
had  refused  to  solve. 
[72] 


What  the  Fowl  Knew 


With  a  certain  logic  he  had  that  summer  given 
up  the  language  of  human  beings  who  were,  so  to 
speak,  silent  to  his  questioning,  and  he  had  adopted 
that  of  the  barnyard  beasts  who  answered  all  his 
questions  and  illustrated  for  him  all  the  processes 
of  reproduction. 

His  cruelty  toward  chickens  and  his  constant  de- 
sire to  cut  off  their  necks  was  a  natural  reaction  to 
his  being  pecked  and  to  a  fear  of  castration  due  to 
a  foolish  servant's  threat. 

A  repetition  of  the  same  threat  caused  him  to  pro- 
pound many  questions  as  to  the  problem  of  death, 
angels  and  heaven.  Later  he  began  to  occupy  him- 
self with  religious  thoughts.  Old  bearded  beggars 
impressed  him  deeply  and  at  the  same  time  at- 
tracted and  frightened  him.  Often  after  watch- 
ing one  of  them  he  would  let  his  head  hang  down 
and  say:  "Now  I  am  a  beggar  chicken." 

The  animals  who  had  satisfied  his  curiosity  had 
also  supplied  him  with  a  model  with  which  to 
identify  himself. 

Very  logically  he  had  decided  to  cast  in  his  lot 
with  the  knowing  instead  of  the  ignorant.  His 
parents  and  other  adults  "did  not  know,"  the 
chickens  "knew." 

The  little  girl  observed  by  Jung,  Anna,  was  a 
healthy,  intelligent,  lively  child  of  three,  who  had 

[73] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


never  been  seriously  sick  and  whose  nerves  seemed 
to  be  in  excellent  condition. 

She  once  asked  her  grandmother  whether  she 
would  become  young  again.  Her  grandmother  ex- 
plained to  her  that  she  would  grow  older  and  older 
and  finally  die  and  become  an  angel. 

And  then,  little  Anna  asked,  "Will  you  again 
become  a  baby?" 

This  was  not  the  child's  first  attempt  at  solving 
the  great  problem  of  the  origin  of  human  life. 

Her  father  had  explained  to  her  that  children  were 
brought  by  the  stork;  then  some  one  else  imparted 
to  her  the  supplementary  information  that  the  stork 
picked  them  up  in  heaven  where  they  were  living 
as  angels. 

The  remark  made  to  her  grandmother  revealed 
the  relatively  enormous  mental  exertion,  consider- 
ing the  child's  age,  to  which  Anna  had  submitted 
herself.  Children  are  angels  brought  down  by 
the  stork;  grandmother  after  death  will  go  to  heaven 
and  become  an  angel;  then  probably  she  will  be 
picked  up  some  time  by  the  stork  and  become  a 
baby. 

This  solved  more  or  less  satisfactorily  the  prob- 
lems of  birth  and  death.  Death  became  a  pic- 
turesque experience  of  a  romantic  type  devoid  of 
any  horror  and  holding  out  hopes  of  rejuvenation. 
[74] 


Life  and  Death  Theories 


Very  soon  after,  her  mother  became  pregnant. 
Anna  apparently  did  not  notice  the  fact  or,  if  she 
did,  failed  to  mention  it. 

A  few  hours  before  the  mother's  delivery,  Anna's 
father  took  the  child  on  his  knee  and  asked  her: 
"What  would  you  do  if  you  should  get  a  little 
brother  tonight?"  "I  would  kill  it,"  Anna  an- 
swered simply,  without  emotion,  which  in  view  of 
her  theories  of  death  and  resurrection,  implied 
merely  that  she  would  send  the  child  back  where  it 
came  from. 

On  the  other  hand,  she  undoubtedly  had  de- 
veloped by  that  time  her  death-birth  theory,  for  she 
asked  her  mother  when  admitted  to  her  room, 
"What  is  going  to  happen  now?  Are  you  not  go- 
ing to  die?"  1 

1  Bleuler  cites  the  case  of  a  little  girl  three  and  a  half  years 
old  who,  after  the  coming  of  a  baby  in  the  household,  also  con- 
structed a  theory  of  life  and  death. 

She  was  extremely  interested  in  the  baby  and  its  nursing. 
When  bitten  once  by  a  mosquito  she  was  heard  to  remark  that  a 
little  breast  was  growing  on  her,  and  she  resented  greatly  the 
disappearance  of  the  swelling  as  the  bite  healed. 

One  day  her  mother  told  her  the  story  of  the  Ugly  Duckling 
and  she  showed  keen  interest  in  it.  She  constantly  asked  to  have 
the  story  repeated,  especially  that  part  of  it  in  which  the  duck 
brings  forth  young  ones.  The  wording  of  her  request  for  the 
story  reveals  the  problem  which  was  on  her  mind:  "Tell  me 
about  the  lady  and  how  the  children  come,"  although  she  knew 
that  the  tale  dealt  with  a  duck,  not  with  a  woman. 

Asked  once  why  she  liked  the  story  so  well  she  said: 

"Because  it  gives  me  so  much  pleasure." 

[75] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Sent  to  spend  a  few  weeks  with  her  grandmother 
while  her  mother  was  recuperating,  Anna  constantly 
reverted  to  questions  concerning  the  stork  theory. 
When  she  returned  she  appeared  annoyed  and 
suspicious.  While  not  hostile  to  the  baby,  she 
would  keep  away  from  it  and  sit  for  hours  under 
a  table,  mournful  and  dreamy,  at  times  singing  to 
herself  little  songs  she  improvised  and  in  which  the 
nurse  seemed  to  play  an  important  part. 

At  times,  too,  she  would  grow  rebellious;  she 
threatened  to  abandon  her  mother  and  to  go  to  live 
with  her  grandmother.  Once,  finally,  the  result 
of  her  long  cogitations  revealed  itself  in  an  unex- 
pected outburst. 

"We  are  going  into  the  garden,"  her  mother  said 
to  her. 

"Don't  tell  lies,  Mamma,"  Anna  answered. 

"What  are  you  thinking  of?  I  always  tell  the 
truth,"  the  mother  said. 

"No,  Mamma,  you  are  not  telling  the  truth." 

"You  will  see;  come  with  me  into  the  garden." 

"What  gives  you  pleasure?" 

"The  way  in  which  the  little  children  come  out." 

Immediately  after  she  added: 

"I  dreamt  that  Suppenkaster  (a  character  in  a  children's  story) 
fell  into  the  toilet." 

Suppenkaster  in  the  story  becomes  thinner  and  thinner  and 
finally  dies.  After  death  he  grows  again. 

This  child's  theory  was  not  essentially  different  from  that  built 
by  little  Anna. 

[76] 


Children  and  Flowers 


"And  so  it  is  really  true?     You  were  not  lying?" 

This  amazing  conversation  had  only  one  mean- 
ing. Her  observations  had  convinced  her  that  the 
death-and-birth-stork-and-angel  theory  was  an  im- 
position and  that,  consequently,  both  her  father  and 
mother  were  liars.  As  the  idea  of  relativity  is  very 
undeveloped  in  the  young,  if  her  mother  lied  in 
one  case,  she  was  bound  to  lie  in  every  case  and  a 
simple  statement  like  "We  are  going  into  the 
garden"  was  only  another  of  her  mother's  fabrica- 
tions. 

About  that  time,  the  Messina  earthquake  caused 
the  child  to  develop  an  intense  scientific  curiosity 
based  mainly  on  fear.  She  spent  hours  in  her 
father's  library  looking  for  pictures  of  volcanoes 
and  lava  flowing  out  of  the  earth.  Her  question- 
ing assumed  a  different  aspect.  She  would  ply  her 
parents  with  questions  like  the  following: 

"Why  is  Sophie  (her  little  sister)  younger  than 
I?  Where  was  Freddie  (the  baby)  before?  What 
was  he  doing  in  heaven?  Why  didn't  he  come 
down  sooner?" 

Her  parents,  noticing  her  nervous  eagerness,  de- 
cided to  tell  her  a  part  of  the  truth.  Freddie,  she 
was  told,  grew  in  the  body  of  the  mother  as  flowers 
develop  out  of  a  plant. 

This  occasioned  more  questions: 

[77] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


"How  did  Freddie  come  out?  Since  he  cannot 
walk,  did  he  crawl  out?  And  is  there  a  hole 
in  the  breast  or  did  he  come  out  of  the  mouth? 
Why  don't  babies  come  out  of  the  nurse  or  the 
servant?" 

One  day,  when  her  father  was  compelled  by  in- 
disposition to  remain  in  bed,  Anna  approached 
him  with  the  inquiry: 

"Have  you  a  plant  growing  in  you  too?" 

Her  dreams  showed  a  constant  preoccupation 
with  the  birth  problem  and  were  offering  solutions 
for  them;  Noah's  ark  with  animals  falling  out  of 
it,  spring  and  summer  days  with  all  the  flowers 
coming  out. 

A  visit  to  a  pregnant  neighbour  brought  out  a 
curious  comparison  between  the  woman's  body  and 
certain  flowers  and  fruit.  Then  one  day  at  the 
table,  Anna  took  an  orange  announcing  that  she 
was  going  to  swallow  it,  after  which  she  would  have 
a  baby. 

We  must  point  out  the  remarkable  similarity  be- 
tween the  child's  fancy  and  the  various  theories 
found  in  fairy  tales  and  according  to  which  preg- 
nancy is  produced  by  the  eating  of  certain  foods. 

Thus  Anna  solved  the  problem  of  how  children 
enter  the  mother's  body.  After  which  the  role 
played  by  the  father  in  the  bringing  forth  of  chil- 
[78] 


Horrifying  Impressions 


dren  began  to  occupy  her  thoughts.  Certain  re- 
marks she  made  seemed  to  imply  that  she  had  been 
spying  on  her  parents. 

That  manifestation  of  childlike  curiosity  often 
has  disastrous  consequences.  The  child  who  has 
watched  the  sexual  act  performed  by  his  parents 
and  cannot  by  any  means  understand  its  meaning 
may  carry  away  the  most  horrifying  impressions. 

Some  children  are  terrified  and  obsessed  by  what 
seems  to  them  a  scene  of  violence.  Some  may  de- 
velop frigidity  or  impotence  later  in  life  owing  to 
the  disgust  they  experienced.  Some  may  be 
goaded  into  spying  some  more  and  waste  much  time 
and  energy  keeping  themselves  awake  and  waiting 
for  a  new  opportunity.  Some,  identifying  them- 
selves with  the  overpowering  father,  develop  strong 
sadist,  cruel  traits,  others,  identifying  themselves 
with  the  mother,  will  on  the  contrary,  be  masochistic 
perverts.  Others  will,  owing  to  their  ignorance  of 
anatomy  and  physiology,  develop  curious  obses- 
sive ideas  of  an  analerotic  type. 

Little  Anna  had,  therefore,  reached  a  very  crit- 
ical stage  at  which  definite  action  had  become  im- 
perative. 

Her  father  finally  decided  to  satisfy  her  curi- 
osity. Confronted  one  day  with  a  demand  for  ex- 
planations as  to  who  planted  in  her  mother  the  seed 

[79] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


from  which  her  little  brother  grew,  he  gave  her  the 
following  answer  suggested  by  Jung: 

"The  mother  is  like  the  soil  of  the  garden,  and 
the  father  like  the  gardener.  The  father  plants  in 
the  mother  the  seed  from  which  babies  grow." 

The  explanation  proved  satisfactory  and  the  lit- 
tle girl,  after  receiving  confirmation  of  the  truth 
which  she  suspected,  that  children  come  out  the 
mother's  genitals,  ceased  to  cudgel  her  brain  with 
the  vexing  problem  which  for  two  years  had  dis- 
turbed her  so  profoundly. 

Little  Arpad's  and  Little  Anna's  cases  point  out 
a  practical  solution  for  the  problem  of  sexual  en- 
lightenment of  children. 

Explanations  based  upon  botanical  phenomena 
do  not  satisfy  the  children,  their  little  minds  un- 
used to  generalizations  cannot  draw  from  stories 
of  pollen  and  seeds  conclusions  applicable  to  hu- 
man beings.  Parents  must  either  become  the  sexual 
educators  of  their  children  or  allow  some  one  else 
to  play  that  part.  A  teacher  or  the  family  physi- 
cian and  no  one  else,  is  qualified  to  undertake  such 
a  task. 

The  parents  themselves,  however,  properly  in- 
structed by  a  competent  person,  would  be  the  best 
persons  to  open  their  children's  minds  to  such  im- 
portant facts.  By  denying  them  such  knowledge, 
[80] 


The  Revolt  Against  the  Parents 


they  give  to  their  children  an  impression  of  ignor- 
ance and  expose  themselves  to  the  implied  scorn 
which  little  Arpad  revealed  unconsciously  by  ad- 
dressing himself  to  fowls.  By  telling  lying  stories 
they  lose  the  confidence  of  their  children  and  cause 
them  to  question  every  statement  they  may  make 
later  in  life  on  vital  subjects. 

The  revolt  against  the  father's  authority  is  cer- 
tainly due  in  many  cases  to  the  hostility  and  jeal- 
ousy which  the  boy  feels  against  the  man  who 
monopolizes  his  mother's  attentions,  but  in  many 
cases  too,  the  apparent  stupidity  and  unreliability 
of  the  parents  as  a  source  of  information  on  impor- 
tant matters,  as  exemplified  by  their  dodging  and 
fibbing  about  sex,  is  likely  to  exacerbate  a  boy's 
egotistical  sense  of  superiority. 

If  parents  wish  to  lead  their  children  they  must 
obviously  be  ahead  of  them.  If  parents  appear 
either  ignorant  of  certain  facts  known  to  many  of 
the  child's  associates,  or  too  bashful  to  discuss 
things  which  his  little  school  chums  or  some  shady 
characters  with  whom  he  may  be  in  contact,  dis- 
cuss openly  and  without  much  embarrassment,  the 
child  can  only  draw  one  conclusion,  that  his  parents 
are  either  lacking  in  knowledge  or  in  courage,  or 
hopelessly  behind  the  times. 

Parents  often  wonder  why  their  children  in 

[81] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


school  and  out  of  school  generally  follow  the 
wrong  leader.  If  a  child  is  nice,  modest,  well  be- 
haved and  soft  spoken,  he  will  get  very  little  credit 
in  school  from  his  associates.  He  will  not  be  taken 
as  a  model,  and  never  will  be  a  leader.  The  little 
Lord  Fauntleroy  has  a  miserable  time  of  it  in 
school  and  gets  a  lot  of  hazing. 

The  foul-mouthed  urchin,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
swears  and  knows  obscene  words  and  seems  to  lead 
a  romantically  indecent  life  out  of  school  excites 
everybody's  curiosity  and  his  advice  is  taken  on 
every  occasion.  He  is  supposed  to  know  things. 

Children  are  great  egotists,  whose  main  ambi- 
tion is  to  become  grown  ups  and  to  be  treated  as 
such.  They  wish  to  be  taken  seriously  and  resent 
being  considered  as  mentally  inferior  beings. 

The  bad  boy  acts  "like  a  man"  and  his  "wis- 
dom" and  "knowledge"  make  it  easy  for  him  to 
assume  the  leadership  of  "the  gang." 

With  a  little  more  knowledge  and  less  fear  of 
certain  words  and  facts,  parents  could  retain  their 
authority  and  save  their  children  from  many  mis- 
takes committed  while  emulating  the  bad  boys. 

The  question  of  the  sexual  enlightenment  of  chil- 
dren goes  much  farther  than  the  mere  problem  of 
telling  children  accurate  facts  about  sex.  It  has 
[82] 


Parents  and  Children 


an  important  bearing  upon  all  the  relations  between 
parents  and  children. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  analysis  of  Little  Hans  by  Freud  is  not  accessible 
to  English  readers.  The  cases  of  Little  Arpad  and  Little 
Anna,  however,  are  infinitely  richer  in  their  psycho- 
logical applications  and  can  be  found  in  all  their  detail 
in  S.  Ferenczi's  "Contributions  to  Psychoanalysis" 
(Badger)  and  Jung's  lectures  on  "The  Association 
Method,"  published  by  Clark  University.  The  treat- 
ment accorded  to  children  in  the  various  epochs  of  his- 
tory is  well  described  in  G.  H.  Payne's  "The  Child  in 
Human  Progress"  (Putnam's). 

The  various  problems  of  childhood  are  discussed 
thoroughly  by  H.  V.  H.  Hellmuth,  a  woman  physician,  in 
"The  Mental  Life  of  the  Child"  (Nervous  and  Mental 
Disease  Pub.  Co.)  and  by  William  A.  White,  superin- 
tendent of  St.  Elizabeth  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  in  "The  Mental  Hygiene  of  Childhood" 
(Little,  Brown),  two  books  which  should  be  read  by 
every  parent  and  educator.  See  also  "The  Problem  of 
the  Nervous  Child"  by  Elida  Evans  (Dodd,  Mead). 


[83] 


III.    PROGRESS  AND  REGRESSIONS 


CHAPTER    I.     THE    NEGATIVE    AND    THE 
POSITIVE    LIFE 

The  positive  human  being  aims  at  a  goal  which 
is  ahead,  in  time  and  space,  and  perhaps  at  a 
higher  level  than  the  one  on  which  he  presently 
stands.  He  makes  plans  for  a  future  of  useful 
activity,  of  beneficial  endeavour  and  of  social  co- 
operation. He  expects  to  encounter  problems  and 
to  solve  them  in  his  own  way,  perhaps  in  a  novel 
way. 

The  negative  human  being,  on  the  contrary, 
seems  fascinated  by  the  past,  seems  to  live  in  the 
past.  He  is  constantly  seeking  some  abnormal, 
unpleasant,  painful  form  of  regression,  resorting 
to  unsocial,  selfish  means,  avoiding  problems,  and 
when  he  has  to  solve  them  himself,  proving  a  slave 
to  precedents. 

Since  all  men  should  obviously  be  positive,  why 
do  so  many  lead  a  negative  life?  Why  do  so  many 
regress  instead  of  advancing?  Why  do  so  many 
destroy  instead  of  being  constructive? 

Neurotics,  perverts  and  criminals  regress:  neu- 

[87] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


yotics  ransack  their  past  life  for  ready  made  solu- 
tions which,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  cannot  be 
made  to  fit  modified  conditions;  perverts  seek  sex- 
ual gratification  in  ways  which  are  childish  and 
imperfect;  criminals  revert  to  ethics  of  the  prim- 
eval days,  when  each  man  or  each  beast,  ignorant 
as  yet  of  any  form  of  solidarity,  assaulted  every 
other  man  or  beast. 

Regression  is  invariably  due  to  some  feeling  of 
inferiority.  Some  people  develop  a  weak  heart. 
After  which  a  rapid  ascent  up  steep  stairs,  over- 
indulgence in  dancing,  or  a  hearty  meal  may  be  fol- 
lowed by  discomfort  which  makes  the  owner  of  the 
inferior  organ  keenly  conscious  of  his  inferiority. 
Some  of  us  have  capricious  stomachs  or  fatigued 
eyes,  bad  teeth,  a  bald  skull,  thin  arms,  fat  legs, 
lungs  which  are  too  sensitive  to  changes  in  the 
temperature,  etc. 

And  most  of  us  take  those  imperfections  as 
granted.  We  do  not  worry  over  them,  we  reach 
some  crompromise  between  life  as  we  would  lead 
it  if  we  could  and  the  life  which  our  inferior 
organ  allows  us  to  lead;  the  man  with  a  weak 
heart  shuns  dances  and  avoids  excitement;  the  man 
with  a  poor  digestion  may  select  from  the  bill  of 
fare  a  hundred  dainties  which  demand  no  gastric 
strenuosity;  the  man  with  poor  eyes  picks  out 
[88] 


Mysterious  Organs 


books  in  large  print;  the  thin  person  favours  a  fat- 
tening diet;  the  obese  one  selects  a  diet  likely  to 
bring  him  back  to  pleasant  proportions;  the  bald 
man  avoids  exposing  his  skull  to  icy  blasts;  the 
person  with  decayed  teeth  uses  a  nut  cracker.  .  .  . 

All  of  them,  as  long  as  they  are  normal,  find 
enough  enjoyment  in  the  long  list  of  activities  which 
do  not  aggravate  their  condition;  all  of  them  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  "it  cannot  be  helped"  and 
let  it  go  at  that. 

In  certain  cases  the  problem  is  more  complicated. 
Baldness  or  bad  teeth  or  palpitations  are  obvious 
facts  and  the  discomfort  they  bring  in  their  wake  is 
easily  traced  to  its  true  source. 

There  are  many  organs,  however,  whose  location 
in  our  body  is  very  vague  to  most  of  us,  whose 
names  we  do  not  even  know,  which  are  not  painful 
when  diseased  or  deranged,  and  yet  whose  faulty 
functioning  may  cause  distressing  symptoms. 
Overactive  adrenals,  causing  by  their  secretion  of 
adrenin,  a  constant  sense  of  arterial  tension,  may 
cause  us  to  experience  obscure  feelings  of  discom- 
fort which  we  express  by  saying:  "I  don't  feel 
right,  I  feel  out  of  sorts,  etc."  The  normal  man 
has  himself  examined  carefully  by  a  physician  and 
follows  the  treatment  prescribed,  and  unless  the 
treatment  seems  to  fail  absolutely  to  relieve  him, 

[89] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


goes  about  his  business  and  does  not  pay  too  much 
attention  to  his  condition. 

The  neurotic,  on  the  contrary,  dramatizes  his  in- 
feriority, and  instead  of  looking  hopefully  at  all 
the  opportunities  which  are  open  to  him  IN  SPITE 
of  that  inferiority,  dwells  constantly  and  stub- 
bornly upon  the  handicaps  which  it  places  on  him, 
on  the  pleasures,  advantages,  privileges,  which  pal- 
pitations of  the  heart  have  removed  from  his  reach, 
the  attitudes  his  bald  pate  would  spoil,  etc. 

In  the  case  of  unlocalized,  obscure  feelings  of 
discomfort,  he  may  become  despondent,  expect 
death  or  a  lingering  illness,  lose  his  desire  for  life, 
let  himself  drift. 

At  times,  a  sense  of  inferiority  is  forced  upon 
perfectly  normal  people  by  an  environment  which 
they  have  allowed  to  dominate  them  too  completely. 

Healthy  young  men  and  women  may  develop 
a  deep  sense  of  sin  when  they  find  themselves  con- 
stantly reproved  for  the  "impulsive"  acts,  the  un- 
restrained enthusiasm,  the  outbursts  of  demonstra- 
tive affection  which  are  natural  to  strong,  full- 
blooded  human  beings. 

In  small  communities,  in  puritanical  circles, 
which  are  only  too  often  dominated  by  oldish,  sex- 
ually starved,  narrow-minded  old  maids  of  both 
sexes,  most  manifestations  of  vitality  are  likely  to 
[90] 


Repressing  Normal  Cravings 


be  characterized  as  low,  animal,  bestial.  Young 
women  of  an  exuberant  nature,  who  crave  the 
perfectly  legitimate  excitement  and  the  active  life 
of  an  actress,  of  a  concert  artist,  of  an  interpreta- 
tive dancer,  are  the  particular  butt  for  such  at- 
tacks. 

Either  they  leave  their  environment  in  a  rash 
way  which  not  infrequently  entails  suffering  or  re- 
grettable entanglements,  or  they  allow  their  en- 
vironment to  indicate  their  conduct,  they  judge 
themselves  as  severely  as  their  critics  judge  them, 
they  co-operate  with  their  critics  in  repressing 
normal  cravings  which  soon  proceed  to  seek  an  ab- 
normal outlet  in  the  form  of  hysteria,  headaches, 
torturing  states  of  anxiety. 

Or  they  accept  weakly  their  environment's  esti- 
mate of  their  character  with  a  discouraged  "I  am 
no  good"  as  their  justification  and  become  a  plague 
or  a  plaything  for  the  world,  drifting  into  promis- 
cuity, prostitution  or  "insanity." 

As  neither  normal  nor  abnormal  people  can 
carry  happily  through  life  a  feeling  of  inferiority, 
they  assume  after  a  while  a  certain  attitude  which 
brings  them  consolation  or  compensation. 

The  best  and  most  fruitful  attitude  in  such  cases 
is  the  following:  In  one  respect  I  am  inferior  but 
in  other  respects,  I  am  or  can  be  superior. 

[91] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  positive  man  striking  that  attitude  will  strive 
for  some  form  of  superiority:  he  may  become  an 
inventor  of  genius,  a  creator  of  new  things,  an  artist, 
a  writer.  He  may  devise  novel  ways  of  curing  his 
inferiority,  of  exercising  the  inferior  organ  (Adler 
has  noticed  that  many  people  became  chefs  because 
they  originally  had  a  poor  stomach  and  that  many 
singers  start  singing  as  the  best  way  of  developing 
their  inferior  throat) . 

Accomplishment  of  some  sort  will  restore  the  con- 
fidence which  a  feeling  of  inferiority  may  have 
weakened;  it  will  compensate  for  the  satisfactions 
which  mere  inferiority  places  beyond  the  inferior 
man's  reach  and  offset  the  feeling  that  something 
is  wrong  somewhere  in  the  organism.  By  accom- 
plishment, I  mean  the  kind  of  positive,  creative  ac- 
tivity which  receives  a  measure,  however  small,  of 
recognition. 

Negative  people  and  in  certain  cases,  the  origin- 
ally positive  people  who  go  to  extremes,  may  be 
more  tortured  by  their  attempts  at  compensation 
than  they  were  by  the  inferiority  for  which  they 
are  attempting  to  compensate. 

The  world  is  acquainted  with  the  many  crazy  in- 
ventors who  are  pestering  their  friends  with  some 
mechanical  trifle  they  consider  tremendous,  with 
the  cranks  who  would  make  the  world  an  ideal  place 
[92] 


Others  Are  Inferior 


by  banishing  cigarette  smoking,  the  uninspired 
poets,  the  undramatic  playwrights,  and  too  often, 
the  true  men  of  genius  whose  fame  is  to  be  a  post- 
humous one. 

Not  a  few  merge  into  a  deep  melancholia  on  ac- 
count of  their  failure  to  impress  the  world  with  the 
importance  of  their  fad,  not  a  few  are  aroused  to 
acts  of  maniacal  violence  by  the  indifference  with 
which  their  "discoveries"  are  received. 

Another  attitude  which  the  inferior  human  being 
may  adopt  is  expressed  by  the  statement:  Other 
people  too  are  inferior. 

This  may  be  a  basis  for  a  healthy  and  normal 
compromise  with  life.  I  should  not  take  my  in- 
feriority too  tragically  for  many  other  people  have 
a  weak  heart  and  yet  enjoy  life;  many  have  im- 
perfect features  and  yet  have  found  love,  etc.  A 
realization  of  mankind's  imperfections  is  a  good 
antidote  for  the  romantic  view  adopted  by  many 
sentimental  beings  and  which  in  too  many  cases 
leads  them  to  idealize  strangers,  to  make  gods  and 
goddesses  of  people  to  whom  distance  lends  many 
graces. 

Such  a  realization  may  be  very  constructive  in 
its  results,  for  with  it  may  go  an  intelligent  sym- 
pathy for  fellow  sufferers,  more  tolerance,  more 
patience,  more  kindness  for  other  members  of  the 

[93] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


social  body,  who  are  burdened  with  the  same  or 
similar  handicaps. 

That  understanding  is  often  a  source  of  definite 
ego-satisfaction  and  the  inferiority  is  often  ac- 
cepted gratefully  on  account  of  the  mental  su- 
periority to  which  it  leads.  "Not  until  I  was  a 
sufferer  from  .  .  .  did  I  understand,  etc."  is  one 
statement  frequently  met  with,  and  which  is  uttered 
with  a  certain  amount  of  pardonable  pride. 

The  negative  type,  on  the  other  hand,  the  neu- 
rotic individual  convinced  of  his  inferiority,  will 
not  have  any  peace  until  he  proves  to  himself  and 
to  others  that  ALL  human  beings  are  inferior,  not 
only  in  ways  similar  to  his  but  in  many  other  re- 
spects. 

His  level  will  appear  to  him  extremely  low  until 
he  has  dragged  mankind  down  to  the  same  level 
or  even  to  a  lower  one.  Without  doing  himself  any 
appreciable  good  and  without  accomplishing  any- 
thing positive,  he  destroys  his  environment's  equi- 
librium and  ultimately  his  own. 

He  begins  a  campaign  of  disparagement  which 
impugns  every  statement,  every  act,  every  motive, 
aims  at  dwarfing  every  accomplishment,  attributes 
sordid  or  unethical  reasons  to  every  form  of  ac- 
tivity that  comes  within  his  ken. 

He  casts  reflections  on  other  people's  morals, 
[94] 


Withdrawing  from  Reality 


spreads  vague  rumours  about  their  health,  their 
disposition,  their  financial  status.  The  gossip- 
monger  enjoys  a  measure  of  power  due  to  his  repu- 
tation for  having  a  sharp  tongue;  some,  deceived 
by  his  spurious  fearlessness,  may  respect  him,  some 
of  his  victims  may  fear  him. 

But  there  grows  around  him  a  more  or  less  con- 
cealed hostility  which  he  soon  capitalizes  in  order 
to  lend  plausibility  to  his  scorn  and  hatred  of  the 
world. 

Scorn  and  hatred  may  soon  lead  him  into  intro- 
version, that  is,  withdrawal  from  human  society, 
from  social  groups,  which  he  characterizes  as  too 
superficial,  from  crowds,  which  he  denounces  as 
vulgar,  from  friendly  intercourse,  which  he  pre- 
sents as  a  waste  of  time. 

The  foundation  is  laid  for  the  introversion  of 
dementia  praecox  in  which  the  patient  gradually 
withdraws  into  himself  paying  no  more  attention  to 
his  environment,  interested  only  in  his  own  thoughts, 
staring  at  unseen  things  and  in  some  cases  assum- 
ing the  prenatal  position  of  the  fetus  in  the  mother's 
womb. 

Another  attitude  which  individuals  may  assume 
in  order  to  compensate  for  a  feeling  of  inferiority 
is  the  "sour  grape"  attitude.  Within  certain  limits 
it  is  helpful.  The  man  who  fails  to  attain  a  certain 

[95] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


object  may  console  himself  by  letting  his  mind 
dwell  on  the  advantages  instead  of  on  the  unfor- 
tunate side  of  his  failure.  "That  position  would 
have  been  advantageous  but  it  would  have  meant 
less  freedom,  etc."  The  jilted  suitor  may  remem- 
ber certain  unpleasant  traits  of  his  sweetheart  which 
might  have  made  life  with  her  a  doubtful  venture. 
The  neurotic,  on  the  other  hand,  proceeds  to  dispar- 
age all  the  goals  which  are  beyond  his  reach.  Un- 
prepossessing bachelors  of  both  sexes  are  very  loud 
in  their  denunciation  of  the  badness  of  men  and 
women  respectively.  Ugly  persons  destined  to  be 
wall  flowers  criticize  the  dances  at  which  they  are 
not  welcome  and  the  low  neck  gowns  which  would 
expose  their  lack  of  charms.  Not  only  do  they 
deny  vociferously  their  desire  for  "sour  grapes" 
but  they  condemn  all  attempts  on  the  part  of  others 
at  reaching  the  goals  which  have  eluded  them. 
Negative  in  their  life,  they  become  teachers  of  neg- 
ativism. They  say  "No"  to  life,  because  life  said 
"No"  to  them  and  they  avenge  themselves  by  dis- 
couraging all  those  who,  young  and  healthy,  would 
say  "Yes"  to  life. 

A  craving  for  safety  is  natural  in  all  living 
things  and  constitutes  one  of  the  essential  conditions 
of  individual  or  group  survival.  The  race  which 
is  not  afraid  of  other,  more  aggressive  races,  which 
[96] 


The  Craving  for  Safety 


disregards  the  dangers  accruing  from  epidemics 
and  does  not  insure  its  future  by  permanent  agen- 
cies of  welfare,  the  individual  who  fails  to  stop, 
look  and  listen  at  crossings  and  never  looks  before 
he  leaps,  has  an  interesting  but  abbreviated  career. 

It  is  especially  when  our  organism  is  not  abso- 
lutely perfect  that  we  must  exercise  very  special 
care  to  offset  that  handicap.  The  man  with  a  weak 
foot  should  not  take  chances  and  cross  avenues  in 
front  of  swiftly  moving  vehicles.  The  man  with 
weak  eyes  should  not  jump  until  he  has  estimated 
very  accurately  the  distance  between  starting  and 
landing  points;  the  man  with  weak  kidneys  should 
avoid  strong  beverages,  etc. 

Normal  and  inferior  persons  can  indulge  their 
craving  for  safety  in  perfectly  positive  ways,  arriv- 
ing at  a  compromise  between  what  they  would  like 
to  do  and  what  they  can  safely  do  without  injury 
to  life  and  limb,  without  loss  of  money  or  of  social 
prestige,  etc.  The  positive  person  asks:  "How 
can  I  safely  do  a  certain  thing?" 

The  abnormal  neurotic  person  on  the  other  hand 
will  ask:  "What  shall  I  avoid  in  order  to  be  safe?" 

In  other  words  the  positive  person  stresses  the 
accomplishment,  the  negative  lays  emphasis  on 
safety. 

Here  again,  instead  of  looking  into  the  future,  the 

[97] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


negative  neurotic  looks   into  the  past  for  prece- 
dents.    "How  did  I  once  find  safety?" 

This  means,  as  usual,  a  regression  to  a  younger 
and  younger  stage,  to  one  in  which  safety  was  as- 
sured by  the  parents,  guardians  or  teachers,  who 
solved  all  problems  as  soon  as  they  arose,  constantly 
created  precedents  for  conduct  and  made  all  plan- 
ning for  the  future  unnecessary.  Thousands  of 
neurotics  thus  run  back  to  father  or  mother  in  a 
symbolic  way. 

We  are  all  acquainted  with  the  man  who  uses  as  a 
criterion  of  his  and  other  people's  actions  what  "his 
poor  father"  would  have  thought  of  them,  with  the 
woman  who  does  a  certain  thing  because  "it  would 
have  made  mother  happy,"  and  also  with  the  men 
and  women  who  refrain  from  doing  perfectly 
simple,  legitimate,  harmless  things  because  their 
father  or  mother  disapproved  of  them.  Thousands 
are  Democrats  or  Republicans  because  of  their 
fathers'  political  affiliations  and  for  no  other  con- 
scious reason. 

Such  people  are  naturally  hostile  to  every  change, 
be  it  in  fashions  or  in  government,  because,  very 
naturally,  there  was  nothing  in  their  past  which 
constitutes  a  precedent  for  harem  skirts  or  munic- 
ipal ice  houses,  for  cubism  or  original  surgical 
methods. 
[98] 


Nagging  Men  and  Women 


The  feeling  of  strangeness  experienced  by  many 
neurotics  is  easily  explained  as  a  regression  to  the 
past.  Life  goes  on,  but  they  either  linger  at  one 
level  or  sink  to  a  lower  one  and  reality  is  to  them 
a  more  and  more  puzzling  phenomenon. 

The  old-fashioned  type  is  often  the  product  of  a 
sense  of  inferiority,  lack  of  adaptability  and  elastic- 
ity, low  power  of  assimilation,  coupled  with  an 
abnormal  desire  for  safety. 

This  attitude  very  often  assumes  a  sexual  com- 
plexion which  may  deceive  superficial  observers. 

The  inferior  male,  who  obscurely  fears  that  he 
might  not  come  up  to  the  expectations  of  a  sexual 
partner,  disparages  all  women  and  seeks  safety  on 
the  pedestal  of  his  self -assumed  masculine  superior- 
ity. The  inferior  female  pretends  to  scorn  all 
males.  The  inferior  husband  surrounds  his  wife 
with  varied  protective  devices  which  are  ostensibly 
meant  to  protect  her,  and  imply  her  inability  to  pro- 
tect herself.  He  dictates  what  she  may  read,  whom 
she  may  properly  meet,  what  she  should  wear,  in 
reality,  isolating  her  as  completely  as  possible  from 
other  more  attractive  and  perhaps  more  virile 
males. 

The  inferior  wife  nags  her  husband  into  giving 
up  "habits,"  friends,  clubs,  membership  in  asso- 
ciations likely  to  supply  him  with  alibis;  in  brief, 

[99] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


she  protects  him  from  women  more  attractive  than 
she  is  by  constantly  asserting  her  ownership  of  him 
and  excluding  from  his  circle  of  acquaintances  all 
sources  of  possible  temptation. 

Inferior  persons  of  both  sexes  only  feel  safe  when 
the  opposite  sex  has  been  humiliated.  Men  and 
women  alike  have  contributed  to  the  hostility  be- 
tween sexes  as  a  consequence  of  which  the  mascu- 
line domination  which  is  now  gradually  yielding 
to  the  onslaughts  of  feminists,  implanted  itself  for 
many  centuries. 

And  this  leads  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  will-to- 
power  from  its  positive  and  negative  sides. 

The  will-to-power  is  a  normal  striving  of  the  liv- 
ing being  for  the  natural  result  of  regular,  un- 
hampered growth,  physical  and  mental,  of  the  per- 
fect functioning  of  all  the  bodily  agencies  of  ac- 
quisition, assimilation,  metabolism  and  elimination : 
power. 

Health  and  power  are  synonymous;  power  to  re- 
sist death,  power  to  do  one's  tasks  without  a  feeling 
of  exhaustion;  power  to  join  in  all  the  world's  ac- 
tivities; power  for  enjoyment;  power  to  be  used  in 
emergencies.  Every  normal  man  or  woman  de- 
sires and  seeks  that  form  of  power. 

The  will-to-power,  on  the  other  hand,  becomes 
negative  when  the  craving  for  it  is  synonymous  with 
[100] 


Negative  Compensation 


a  desire  to  destroy,  not  to  create,  to  overpower 
others,  not  to  be  their  equal  in  every  respect. 

Instead  of  the  positive  statement:  I  must  be 
strong,  the  neurotic  says,  unconsciously:  "I  must 
appear  as  though  I  were  strong." 

Ferenczi  cites  the  very  striking  case  of  a  weak, 
neurotic  clerk  who,  when  submitted  to  some  humil- 
iation by  his  employer,  went  out  to  seek  some  male 
prostitute.  Instead  of  being  strong,  manly,  and 
either  meeting  the  insult  with  proud  rebuff  or  mak- 
ing himself  more  valuable  and  more  worthy  of 
respect,  the  poor  neurotic  spent  some  money,  rep- 
resenting power,  in  order  to  subdue  to  his  will  and 
to  humiliate  some  wretched  man  of  the  gutter. 

And  indeed,  that  psychology  is  not  as  rare  as  one 
might  think;  to  many  a  neurotic,  physical  relations 
are  symbolical  of  a  humiliation  of  the  woman; 
many  a  jealous  neurotic  has  confessed  to  me  that 
his  worse  torture  was  not  the  suspicion  that  his 
wife's  affection  was  growing  less  but  that  some 
other  man  might  subject  her  to  his  will  even  as  he 
himself  did. 

Innumerable  neurotic  disturbances,  epilepsy, 
sick  headaches,  dizziness,  fainting  spells,  are  ex- 
pedients enabling  the  sick  to  indulge  their  will-to- 
power  in  a  negative  way.  Instead  of  accumulat- 
ing strength,  they  wear  out  the  strength  of  those 

[101] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


with  whom  they  come  in  contact  and  who  have  to 
take  care  of  them.  Many  an  epileptic,  facing  de- 
feat, "throws"  a  fit  and  thus  gains  an  advantage  he 
could  not  claim  justly. 

The  woman  with  a  sick  headache  silences  the 
entire  household;  the  dizzy  person  suffering  from 
agoraphobia,  requires  an  escort;  the  person  who 
faints  commands  the  services  and  the  attention  of 
all  those  present.  None  of  those  neurotic  sufferers 
is  conscious  of  that  procedure  but  almost  all  of 
them  confess  naively  some  time  or  other  to  the 
pleasure  vouchsafed  them  by  the  prompt  succour 
offered  them. 

And  in  that  na'ive  avowal  there  is  concealed  one 
more  egotistical  satisfaction:  "You  see  how  ap- 
preciative I  am.  .  .  ."  This  is  one  form  of  uncon- 
scious hypocrisy  very  noticeable  in  people  with  a 
weak  heart.  They  promptly  exploit  the  popular 
superstition  which  makes  the  heart  the  centre  of  all 
the  tender  emotions  and  boast  of  their  sensitiveness 
which  naturally  makes  them  more  sympathetic  and 
places  a  new  duty  upon  those  whom  they  uncon- 
sciously victimize. 

Self-knowledge  as  acquired  through  analysis  or 
self -analysis,  is  the  only  protection  against  a  nega- 
tive orientation,  against  an  attitude  which  is  dis- 
astrous to  the  sufferer  and  his  environment.  For 
[102] 


Neurotic  Superiority 


while  the  neurotic  derives  infinite  unconscious  sat- 
isfaction from  his  abnormality  he  consciously  goes 
through  the  tortures  of  hell.  His  spurious  su- 
periority and  power  do  not  satisfy  him  consciously. 
And  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  he  is  so  easily 
aroused,  so  vituperative  and  insulting  in  disputes. 
From  this  he  again  derives  a  certain  superiority. 
People  are  afraid  of  discussing  any  subject  with  a 
neurotic  and  oftentimes  yield  point  after  point  in 
order  to  avoid  unpleasantness. 

The  neurotic  obscurely  feels  that  his  arguments 
are  not  valid,  that  his  position  is  untenable,  that 
his  evidence  could  not  stand  any  test  and  his  anger 
at  his  own  powerlessness  is  projected  on  those  who 
cross-examine  him.  He  is  like  a  man  who  has 
been  hypnotized  and  unconsciously  invents  very 
plausible  reasons  for  proving  that  he  did  of  his 
free  will  what  the  hypnotist  commanded  him  to  do. 

Insight  into  our  unconscious,  like  the  gradual 
and  detailed  explanations  of  the  hypnotist  to  his 
subject,  allows  both  neurotic  and  medium  to  realize 
that  they  were  subjected  for  a  while  to  an  abnormal 
influence  and  that  to  a  certain  extent  "they  were  not 
themselves." 

The  problem  to  solve  constantly  in  human  con- 
duct is:  "Am  I  myself,  is  it  I  myself  who  am 
speaking  and  acting  or  is  it  my  unconscious  self, 

[103] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


attempting  to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance, 
leading  me  toward  regression  instead  of  progress, 
toward  the  past  instead  of  toward  the  future?" 

Conduct  based  upon  that  system  alone  might 
not  be  perfectly  normal.  Introversion  and  extro- 
version, that  is  the  fixation  of  our  attention  upon 
ourselves  or  upon  exterior  objects,  can  both  be 
normal  and  abnormal.  Extreme  introversion,  the 
detachment  of  our  interest  from  the  entire  world 
and  its  fixation  on  ourselves  alone  means  absolute 
negativism,1;  extreme  extroversion,  the  constant  chas- 
ing of  a  new  butterfly,  exaggerated  interest  in  every 
passing  fad  or  detail  of  life,  means  the  squandering 
of  our  resources,  mental  and  physical,  on  a  hundred 
goals  none  of  which  is  ever  reached. 

He  who  attempts  too  many  things  is  almost  as 
unproductive  as  he  who  withdraws  from  reality. 

Our  reactions  to  stimulus  words  and  our  dreams 
alone  can  give  us  a  clear  picture  of  our  orientation. 
Introversion  and  extroversion  are  easily  determined 
by  even  a  superficial  examination  of  the  first  and  our 
dreams  reveal  to  us  accurately  what  our  uncon- 
scious is  trying  to  make  us  do. 

The  Aschner  test  described  on  page  40  is  a  sim- 
ple way  of  confirming  the  diagnosis. 

He  whose  reactions  reveal  him  as  extremely  self- 
[104] 


Positive  Standards 


centred  and  introverted  should  be  on  his  guard 
against  that  tendency  and  force  himself  to  adopt 
attitudes  which  will  lead  to  fewer  conflicts  with  his 
environment. 

The  overmodest  person  burdened  with  a  feeling 
of  inferiority  can  go  through  a  systematic  training 
of  ego-building  and  personality  development. 

In  other  words,  those  who  have  been  deceived 
by  their  unconscious  and  who  know  to  what  extent 
the  deception  has  gone,  may  discount  their  first  im- 
pressions and  withhold  final  judgment  until  they 
have  ascertained  whether  their  conscious  I  or  their 
unconscious  I  is  responsible  for  that  first  impres- 
sion and  is  dictating  their  judgment. 

We  must  now  and  then  go  through  the  process 
which  the  Catholics  call  examination  of  conscience 
and  submit  our  attitudes  to  a  test  based  upon  the 
following  five  propositions: 

A  tendency  to  constantly  disparage  is  negative 
and  should  put  ourselves  on  our  guard. 

Desire  for  power  that  exalts  us  at  the  expense  of 
others  is  also  negative. 

The  constant  search  for  precedents  is  negative. 

In  brief,  whatever  enables  us  to  harmonize  with 
our  environment  and  to  help  it  toward  its  goal  is 
positive. 

[105] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Whatever  creates  disharmony  between  ourselves 
and  our  environment  and  retards  its  onward  march 
is  negative. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For  a  study  of  the  neurotic  temperament  consult 
William  A.  White's  "Elements  of  Character  Formation" 
and  "Principles  of  Mental  Hygiene,"  both  published  by 
Macmillan.  "Human  Motives,"  by  J.  J.  Putnam,  is  a 
very  simple  presentation  of  the  hidden  forces  which  com- 
pel us  to  act  abnormally  at  times. 

The  deepest  and  most  searching  analysis  of  the  neu- 
rotic's mental  workings  will  be  found  in  A.  Adler's  "The 
Neurotic  Constitution"  (Moffat,  Yard)  which  requires 
very  careful  reading,  for  it  presupposes  a  certain  knowl- 
edge of  analytic  methods  and  has  been  translated  in 
rather  heavy  style. 


[106] 


CHAPTER  II.     SPEECH  AND  MEMORY  DE- 
FECTS 

The  neurotic  type  in  its  negative  attitude  to  life 
refuses  to  face  unpleasant  facts.  It  adopts  the  os- 
trich's tactics  and  buries  its  head  in  the  sand.  The 
most  efficient  way  to  flee  from  an  unpleasant  reality 
is  not  to  know  any  longer  that  it  was  once  perceived. 
Oblivion  is  the  simplest  way  to  rid  oneself  of  an 
unpleasant  fact.  If  it  cannot  be  entirely  forgotten, 
avoiding  to  mention  it  is  the  next  best  negative  ex- 
pedient. Loss  of  memory,  partial  or  complete,  ob- 
literates a  part  of  our  biography  which  we  lack 
courage  to  acknowledge  as  our  own.  Aphasia, 
aphonia  or  stammering  withhold  conveniently  state- 
ments which  our  unconscious  considers  damaging. 

A  German  woman  of  fifty  who  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  had  been  especially  loud  in  her  proger- 
manism  and  had  thereby  caused  her  family  and 
relatives  a  great  deal  of  annoyance,  was  absolutely 
prostrated  when  her  son,  a  naturalized  citizen,  was 
drafted.  A  panicky  fear  seized  her  lest  her  indis- 
crete utterances  might  bring  punishment  upon  her 
beloved  boy's  head. 

[107] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  night  when  he  left  for  camp,  she  became 
strangely  silent  and  the  next  morning  she  was  ab- 
solutely disoriented,  being  unable  to  recognize  any 
member  of  her  family  or  her  environment. 

Her  memory  for  everything  which  had  occurred 
since  August,  1914,  was  entirely  gone;  she  could 
speak  only  with  great  difficulty  and  for  a  while 
her  vocal  cords  lost  all  resonance;  she  regained  to  a 
certain  extent  her  powers  of  speech  when  express- 
ing herself  in  English  but  she  was  absolutely  unable 
to  make  herself  heard  when  she  talked  German. 

On  the  other  hand,  her  memory  of  events  preced- 
ing the  world  catastrophe  was  absolutely  unim- 
paired. While  she  never  joined  a  conversation  or 
addressed  any  one  first  she  would  very  often  supply 
with  astounding  accuracy  facts  or  dates  needed  by 
those  conversing  in  her  presence.  All  the  facts 
of  her  biography  and  of  that  of  her  children  ante- 
dating 1914  were  perfectly  clear  and  well  remem- 
bered, but  when  asked  their  age,  she  gave  the  age 
they  had  reached  in  August,  1914. 

Here  is  a  case  then  in  which  partial  amnesia  and 
partial  aphasia  proved  a  negative  asset  to  the  neu- 
rotic. The  war  which  brought  her  much  misfor- 
tune was  forgotten.  The  voice  which  had  carried 
to  hostile  ears  many  indiscrete  statements  was 
muted  and  the  language  which  at  a  time  none  could 
[108] 


The  Ways  of  the  Stammerer 


speak  in  public  without  being  eyed  suspiciously  or 
ostracised,  failed  to  make  her  vocal  cords  vibrate. 

A  stammerer  engaged  in  scientific  research  never 
had  any  difficulty  in  mentioning  a  certain  chemical 
whose  methods  of  production  he  was  trying  hard 
to  improve.  One  day,  however,  a  fellow  laboratory 
worker  forestalled  him  in  finding  a  more  efficient 
device.  At  the  next  appointment,  the  stammerer 
was  almost  unable  to  tell  me  of  the  occurrence  and 
could  not  for  several  minutes  pronounce  clearly  the 
name  of  the  chemical  in  question.  His  unconscious 
egotism  was  bent  on  withholding  from  me  informa- 
tion of  a  humiliating  character.  As  soon  as  the 
neurotic  expedient  became  obvious  to  him,  his  im- 
pediment disappeared. 

A  woman  compelled  in  self-defence  to  tell  her 
husband  a  very  complicated  story  lacking  in  plaus- 
ibility, began  to  stammer  whenever  a  word  in  her 
conversation  seemed  to  be  unconsciously  associated 
with  the  compromising  incident.  A  full  confession 
in  my  office  relieved  the  tension  and  the  "watchful 
technique"  did  the  rest. 

A  study  of  all  cases  of  memory  and  speech  dis- 
turbances will  soon  convince  the  observer  that  our 
memory  does  not  retain  or  lose  words  and  facts 
indiscriminately. 

Stammerers  do  not  stammer  indiscriminately. 

[109] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


There  always  is  an  absurd  unconscious  reason, 
neurotically  logical,  which  causes  us  to  forget  a 
word,  a  fact,  a  duty,  a  figure,  or  to  lose  partly  or 
completely  our  powers  of  speech. 

We  may  forget  anything  which  has  an  unpleasant 
unconscious  connotation,  we  may  stammer  on  any 
word  which  has  an  unpleasant  association  or  be 
totally  unable  to  pronounce  it. 

Hence  the  usual  methods  for  improving  the  mem- 
ory are  psychologically  absurd. 

We  may  memorize  long  lists  of  words  or  sen- 
tences, poems  and  orations  and  yet  at  the  crucial 
moment  the  right  word  may  be  withheld  because 
some  unconscious  complex  makes  it  impossible  for 
us  to  utter  it. 

Mnemotechnic  methods  which  seek  to  create  new 
and  at  times  illogical  and  absurd  associations  of  the 
"clang"  type  or  of  the  pun  type  are  better.  They 
grant  unconsciously  what  the  analysts  claim,  that 
the  associations  conjured  up  by  a  word  may  be  of 
such  a  nature  that  the  word  cannot  be  uttered  and 
they  seek  to  replace  a  natural  and  unconscious  as- 
sociation by  an  unnatural  and  conscious  one. 

This  involves  however  a  gigantic  amount  of  ex- 
ertion and  the  results  of  this  procedure  cannot  be 
permanent. 

The  removal  of  the  complexes  which  hold  words 
[110] 


Why  We  Forget 


down  is  the  only  scientific  method  for  "improving" 
one's  memory.  Psychoanalysis  does  not,  however, 
"improve"  one's  memory;  it  disintegrates  the  ele- 
ments which  impair  our  memory. 

Our  memory  is  simply  the  faculty  our  autonomic 
nerves  have  of  making  use,  in  an  emergency,  of  im- 
pressions received  in  the  course  of  our  bringing  up. 
When  some  fear-impression  causes  the  safety  divi- 
sion of  the  autonomic  system  to  repress  the  natural 
activities  of  the  other  divisions,  the  words  are,  if  the 
repression  is  complete,  entirely  forgotten,  or  if  the 
repression  is  less  complete,  remembered  but  unpro- 
nounceable and,  if  the  repression  fails,  stammered 
on  more  or  less  painfully. 

The  various  cures  suggested  for  stammering 
have  never  cured  any  one  permanently. 

Any  stammerer  can  be  trained  to  read  without 
any  difficulty  lists  of  disconnected  words  and  sen- 
tences of  varying  length.  Any  stammerer  can  be 
trained  to  sing  without  stammering. 

This  means  that  the  words  he  studies  lose  grad- 
ually their  present,  unconscious  associations  and 
become  mere  sounds.  As  soon,  however,  as  those 
words  are  grouped  differently  and  acquire  anew 
their  unconscious  associations,  the  stammerer  once 
more  becomes  tongue-tied. 

Making  the  sufferer  change  the  pitch  of  his  voice, 

cm] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


one  popular  method  of  treating  stammerers,  is  just 
as  inefficient.  Called  upon  to  single  out  one  word 
and  to  treat  it  as  a  "vehicle"  for  sound,  not  for 
thought,  the  stammerer  no  longer  feels  any  embar- 
rassment. The  embarrassment  returns,  however, 
when  the  stammerer  has  to  speak  in  a  natural,  even 
tone  of  voice. 

Experiments  show  that  fixation  of  the  reading 
glance  on  one  word  only  at  a  time,  helps  the  stam- 
merer, for  it  accomplishes  more  simply  the  same 
purpose  as  a  change  of  pitch.  It  disconnects  each 
word  from  its  context  and  hence  rids  it  of  its  as- 
sociations. 

This  is,  however,  little  more  than  an  expedient 
and  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 

Nothing  avails  except  to  free  the  subject  from  the 
unconscious  complexes  withholding  the  words  on 
which  he  stammers. 

The  stammerer  who  gains  insight  into  the  mech- 
anism of  his  disability,  who  realizes  not  only  that 
every  bothersome  word,  sound  or  even  letter,  is 
fraught  with  an  unpleasant  connotation,  but,  fur- 
thermore, that  his  stammering  is  a  valuable  nega- 
tive asset  for  him,  will  gradually  acquire  perfect 
fluency  of  speech. 

One  stammerer  I  treated  came  to  realize  that  his 
stammering  enabled  him  to  dominate  his  environ- 
[112] 


Memory  and  Speech  Training 


ment,  as  his  mother  and  sister  had  to  do  all  his 
shopping,  receive  and  send  all  his  telephone  mes- 
sages; he  could  keep  his  employer  waiting  for  ex- 
planations, he  could  delay  his  answers  and  modify 
their  wording  (hereby  satisfying  his  safety  crav- 
ings). While  he  could  pronounce  without  diffi- 
culty the  name  of  any  woman  he  was  acquainted 
with,  he  could  seldom  pronounce  men's  names,  es- 
pecially when  those  men  wielded  some  authority 
over  him. 

The  usual  memory  and  speech  methods  are  based 
on  the  assumption  that  certain  people  are  born 
with  a  poor  memory  or  a  "heavy  tongue."  Psycho- 
analysis assumes  that  all  human  beings  are  born 
with  probably  the  same  average  ability  but  that 
in  the  course  of  their  bringing  up  some  of  that 
average  ability  has  been  handicapped  by  complexes 
and  cannot  manifest  itself  freely.  Instead  of  de- 
veloping memory  or  fluency,  psychoanalysis  busies 
itself  with  the  removal  of  the  complexes  which 
disable  the  patient. 

This  precludes  the  relapses  which  are  so  frequent 
and  so  discouraging  in  the  treatment  of  amnesia, 
aphasia  and  stammering  by  the  old  fashioned 
methods.  - 


[113] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Very  little  has  been  published  on  stammering  from  the 
psychoanalytic  point  of  view.  See  "Stammering  as  a 
Psychoneurosis"  by  Isador  H.  Coriat,  Journal  of  Abnor- 
mal Psychology,  Vol.  IX,  No.  6,  and  "Stammering  as  a 
Psychoneurosis  and  Its  Treatment  by  Psychoanalysis"  by 
M.  D.  Eder,  Int.  Med.  Congress,  Section  of  Psychiatry. 
Tr.  XVII.  See  also  A.  Appelt:  "Stammering  and  Its 
Permanent  Cure."  1912. 


[114] 


CHAPTER  III.     SCAPEGOATS 

Ever  since  man  appeared  on  the  earth  he  has 
felt  the  necessity  of  scapegoats.  Frazer's  monu- 
mental work  "The  Golden  Bough"  reveals  thou- 
sands of  obvious  or  subtle  attempts  on  the  part  of 
mankind  to  saddle  the  responsibility  for  individual 
or  group  shortcomings  on  some  unwilling  or  willing 
sacrificial  victim,  beast,  man  or  god. 

The  Greek  drama  blamed  fate,  the  Middle  Ages 
the  devil;  one  civilization  sacrificed  a  goat  whose 
death  wiped  off  the  sins  of  men ;  in  another  civiliza- 
tion, Jesus  died  to  save  mankind. 

In  our  days,  we  no  longer  accuse  the  devil  of 
causing  our  failures.  "Popular  science"  spread 
thinly  by  Sunday  newspapers  and  club  lectures, 
supplies  the  masses  with  new  impressive  scapegoats. 

"Racial  traits,"  "inbreeding,"  "heredity,"  "en- 
vironment," have  been  in  a  most  hypocritical  way 
substituted  for  the  goat  of  old. 

The  pagan  who  sinned  and,  afraid  of  the  im- 
pending reckoning,  killed  a  goat  in  order  to  mol- 
lify some  heavenly  policeman,  did  not  deny  his 

[115] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


guilt.  The  modern  "sinner"  who  seeks  excuses  for 
his  brutality  or  his  lewdness  in  his  heredity  or  his 
environment,  is  guilty  of  a  much  more  complete 
flight  from  reality. 

The  pagan  admitted  that  sinning  was  pleasant  but 
could  not  be  indulged  in  unless  there  was  one 
more  goat  to  be  offered  to  the  gods.  The 
modern  sinner  is  consciously  in  fear  of  sin,  but 
unconsciously  preparing  his  escape  by  heaping 
up  guilt  upon  vague  biological  processes  which  he 
does  not  understand. 

The  pagan  said:  "I  did  not  repress  certain 
cravings  and  I  am  willing  to  pay  the  price."  The 
modern  sinner  on  the  other  hand  says:  "I  could 
not  repress  certain  cravings,  because  my  ancestry, 
my  bringing  up  or  my  environment  have  made  it 
impossible  for  me  to  suppress  such  cravings." 

If  the  modern  sinner  has  a  conscience,  such  a 
disclaimer  of  guilt  may  be  perfectly  honest  and 
straightforward  and  constitute  for  the  person  mak- 
ing it  a  great  danger. 

The  hypocrite  who  exploits  heredity  and  other 
scapegoats  as  a  convenient  explanation  for  the 
gratification  of  his  own  cravings  is  probably  safe. 
The  ethically-minded  person  who  believes  that  his 
heredity  or  some  other  biological  factor  has  un- 
fitted him  to  repress  unsocial,  inadmissible  crav- 
[116] 


Pseudo-heredity 


ings  may  undergo  very  torturing  "soul  struggles" 
and  be  defeated  in  life's  battle. 

Physical  heredity  cannot  be  denied  and  Mendel's 
experiments  prove  that  it  is  ruled  by  absolute 
mathematical  laws.  Not  only  do  we  observe  in 
nature  that  certain  characteristics  of  the  parents  are 
reproduced  in  an  invariable  proportion  of  the  off- 
spring, but  we  can,  before  crossing  certain  animal 
or  vegetable  species,  predict  accurately  how  many 
of  the  offspring  will  present  certain  characters  and 
how  many  will  not  present  such  characters. 

This  is  as  far  as  heredity  goes.  The  transmis- 
sion of  mental  characteristics  is  probably  due  to 
what  Freud  calls  pseudo-heredity,  that  is  to  the  in- 
fluence wielded  on  the  child  by  its  environment,  that 
environment  consisting  chiefly  of  the  parents  for  the 
first  years  of  the  child's  life. 

Biologists  generally  agree  that  while  inherited 
characters  or  congenital  characters  cannot  be  modi- 
fied, acquired  characters  can  be  caused  to  disap- 
pear in  later  life. 

Those  who  consider  themselves  as  "burdened 
with  a  bad  heredity"  should  ponder  that  fact. 
They  should  remember  that  even  a  weak  or  defec- 
tive organ,  stomach  or  lungs,  may  be,  not  inherited 
from  the  parents,  but  acquired  under  the  same  un- 
favourable circumstances  which  caused  that  in- 

[117] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


feriority  to  establish  itself  in  their  parents'  organ- 
ism. 

A  changed  environment,  proper  exercise  and 
plenty  of  food  have  been  known,  together  with  imi- 
tation of  the  proper  model,  to  modify  entirely  the 
physical  appearance  of  various  races. 

I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  that  the  so-called 
hereditary  instincts  can  be  absolutely  "removed" 
by  the  influence  of  the  environment. 

When  a  messenger  pigeon  refuses  to  mate  with 
its  kind  if  hatched  by  a  ring  dove  and  then  will  only 
mate  with  ring  doves,  we  must  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  training  is  stronger  than  instinct. 

When  we  observe  that  a  change  in  temperature 
either  shortens  or  prolongs  the  average  life  of  a 
certain  species  or  creates  a  different  species,  we 
must  also  conclude  that  environment  is  stronger 
than  heredity. 

Eggs  from  the  same  butterfly  or  puppae  of  the 
same  species  will  give  entirely  different  species 
at  different  temperatures. 

The  number  of  "hereditary  characters"  is  de- 
creasing year  after  year  as  scientists  become  more 
thorough  in  their  observations  and  include  in  their 
statistics  a  growing  number  of  factors. 

It  was  admitted  for  centuries  that  some  inherited 
[118] 


Fishes  and  Carbonic  Acid 


instinct  caused  fishes  to  rise  to  the  surface  of  the 
waters  at  night  and  to  go  down  to  the  bottom  at 
dawn. 

We  know  now  that  heredity  has  nothing  to  do 
with  that  phenomenon. 

The  presence  of  carbonic  acid  in  water  causes 
all  aquatic  animals  to  direct  themselves  toward  the 
source  of  light.  At  night  the  waters  of  pools  and 
rivers  become  charged  with  carbonic  acid  as  the 
green  aquatic  plants  cannot  absorb  that  gas  in  the 
dark.  Fishes  and  other  organisms  are  affected  by 
that  excess  of  carbonic  acid  and  are  compelled  to 
rise  to  the  surface  where  the  light,  however  feeble, 
is  stronger  than  at  the  bottom. 

In  the  morning,  the  supply  of  acid  decreases 
rapidly  and  all  the  organism^  regain  their  freedom 
and  can  seek  safety  in  the  deeper  strata  of  the 
water. 

By  liberating  large  quantities  of  carbonic  acid 
in  the  water  during  the  day,  one  can  compel  all  the 
aquatic  organisms  to  rise  to  the  surface,  and  by 
directing  at  night  a  strong  light  on  the  waters,  which 
facilitates  the  absorption  of  carbonic  acid  by  green 
plants,  one  can,  on  the  contrary,  cause  the  fishes 
to  remain  at  the  bottom. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  in  a  few  years,  many 

[119] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


obscure  facts  attributed  to  heredity  or  to  instincts 
will  be  traced  to  physical  or  chemical  phenomena 
which  can  be  PRODUCED  or  REMOVED  at  will. 

A  French  scientist,  Pouchet,  has  noticed  that  cer- 
tain fishes  reproduce  the  colour  or  pattern  of  the 
aquarium  in  which  they  are  kept  PROVIDED  THEY 
CAN  SEE  IT.  Blind  fishes  of  the  same  species,  kept 
in  the  same  aquarium,  retain  the  whitish  or  greyish 
colour  they  had  when  they  first  came  out  of  the 
egg.  The  so-called  protective  colouring  of  certain 
animals,  the  seasonal  changes  observed  in  the  plu- 
mage of  the  ptarmigan,  may  not  be  more  than  mere 
unconscious  imitation  of  the  environment,  devoid 
of  any  purpose.  A  very  illuminating  case  of  what 
we  might  call  metachemistry. 

Insanity,  feeble-mindedness  or  criminality  are 
not  inherited  characters.  They  are  often  acquired 
through  either  imitation  or  suggestion  or  both. 

The  insane  and  the  criminal  solve  their  problems 
by  following  the  line  of  least  resistance  and  least 
effort.  The  children  they  bring  up  are  likely,  un- 
less some  healthier  influence  is  exerted  on  them, 
to  solve  their  problems  in  the  same  way,  the  only 
way  which  observation  has  made  thoroughly  fa- 
miliar to  them. 

Auto-suggestion  and  involuntary  suggestion  by 
[120] 


Stupid  Relatives 


others  play  a  powerful  part  in  the  acquisition  of 
criminal  or  neurotic  traits.  In  a  crisis,  the  in- 
dividual weakened  by  his  superstitious  belief  in 
heredity,  may  either  commit  a  crime  or  merge  into 
a  neurosis  because  his  father,  mother  or  grand- 
father established  such  a  precedent. 

That  precedent  may  not  be  more  than  a  legend 
perpetuated  by  inaccurate,  stupid  or  gossipy  rela- 
tives. 

A  man  guilty  of  some  act  of  brutality  is  easily 
catalogued  in  family  archives  as  a  man  of  criminal 
instincts.  A  man  of  rather  morose  disposition  very 
often  has  his  trouble  diagnosed  by  amateur  psy- 
chiatrists in  his  family  circle  as  melancholia. 

A  romantic  legend  may  form  after  his  death 
around  his  actual  biography  and  invest  some  de- 
tail of  behaviour,  which  on  one  occasion  impressed 
the  beholders,  with  the  dignity  of  a  life-long  habit 
or  of  a  serious  mental  disturbance. 

The  stupid  parent  who  vents  his  anger  on  his 
offspring  by  making  remarks  such  as  "You  are 
as  crazy  as  your  father  (mother,  uncle,  aunt)," 
"You  will  end  in  jail  as  your  uncle  did,"  may  start 
a  train  of  suggestive  thought  which  is  highly  danger- 
ous. 

I  have  known  personally  three  brothers  who  were 

[121] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


brought  up  by  an  exceptionally  idiotic  mother  and 
who  on  several  occasions  had  themselves  committed 
to  an  insane  asylum  when  they  lost  their  money  or 
their  jobs.  None  of  them  succeeded  in  remaining 
"insane"  for  any  length  of  time,  although  all  of 
them  repeated  constantly  that  they  were  "going 
crazy  like  their  father."  Inquiry  showed  that  their 
father,  who  died  when  they  were  very  young,  had 
several  fits  of  blues  coinciding  with  slumps  in  the 
family's  finances  but  never  showed  at  any  time  any 
"insane"  traits. 

Men  and  women  have  been  known  to  reproduce 
in  their  behaviour  certain  habits  bad  or  good  of 
their  grandparents.  Investigation  showed  in  many 
of  them,  and  would  probably  have  shown  in  every 
one  of  them,  that  they  were  obsessed  by  the  old  be- 
lief that  genius  or  vice,  etc.,  "skips  a  generation." 

"Racial  psychology,"  a  limited  form  of  "men- 
tal" heredity,  is,  like  heredity  proper,  a  weapon 
directed  against  our  enemies  and  a  scapegoat  for 
our  own  sins.  To  the  honest  psychologist,  so-called 
racial  traits  amount  merely  to  different  sets  of  bad 
manners  tolerated  or  encouraged  in  one  community, 
discouraged  and  held  shameful  in  other  communi- 
ties owing  to  reasons  of  temperature,  climate,  food 
supply,  etc. 

The  unconscious  make-up  of  all  races,  however, 
[122] 


Unions  Between  Blood  Relations 


is  the  same  the  world  over  as  a  careful  analysis  of 
all  folk  traditions,  legends,  religions,  superstitions, 
ritual,  neurotic  psychology,  etc.,  proves  abundantly. 
It  is  as  silly  to  expect  a  certain  form  of  behaviour 
from  one  individual  because  he  is  a  Jew  or  an 
Irishman  as  it  would  be  for  a  Jew  or  an  Irishman 
to  excuse  a  certain  form  of  behaviour  of  his  on  the 
plea  that  his  antecedents  determined  certain  psy- 
chological processes. 

Inbreeding  is  another  cause  for  worry  which 
neurotics  are  likely  to  seize  upon  as  a  conscious 
screen  for  their  unconscious  strivings  to  escape 
reality. 

There  is  absolutely  no  evidence  of  a  scientific 
nature  that  the  marriage  of  blood  relations  is  pro- 
ductive of  insanity  or  feeble-mindedness  in  the 
offspring. 

But  there  are  good  reasons  to  suspect  that  feeble- 
mindedness leads  to  unions  between  blood  relations 
and  in  many  cases  to  incestuous  unions.  Parent 
fixation  being  stronger  in  neurotics  than  in  normal 
individuals,  the  family  complex  is  bound  to  attract 
related  neurotics  to  each  other.  The  result  is  that 
the  children  whom  they  procreate  may  be  born 
normal  but  are  brought  up  by  their  neurotic  parents 
to  adopt  neurotic  forms  of  action  and  thought. 

Goddard,  who  has  made  exhaustive  studies  of 

[123] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


feeble-mindedness,  has  reached  the  conclusion  that 
the  feeble-minded  are  constantly  thrown  together, 
congregate  in  certain  places  and  intermarry  more 
than  normal  individuals. 

That  each  neurotic  family  trains  its  children  to 
one  peculiar  form  of  abnormal  behaviour  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  sinister  Juke  family 
propagated  by  incestuous  descendance:  all  the 
descendants  of  Ada  were  criminals,  the  descendants 
of  Belle,  exhibitionists  or  rapists,  the  descendants 
of  Effie,  beggars. 

As  against  the  tragic  results  of  inbreeding  among 
the  inferior,  we  may  remind  the  reader  of  the  re- 
markable results  of  inbreeding  among  individuals 
of  superior  stock. 

In  Athens  and  her  suburban  communities  be- 
tween 530  and  430  B.  c.,  that  is  during  the  heyday 
of  Hellenic  brilliancy,  there  was  a  small  popula- 
tion from  which  came  about  fifteen  of  the  most 
remarkable  geniuses  the  world  has  ever  known. 

Inbreeding  was  the  custom,  marriage  with  half- 
sisters  being  lawful,  and  unions  with  aliens  being 
discouraged. 

The  decline  of  the  Hellenic  civilization  was  not 
brought  about  by  any  racial  decay  but  by  the  over- 
whelming pressure  of  primitive  races  of  a  more 
savage  type  invading  a  highly  cultured  region  much 
[124] 


Re-education  Possible 


as  the  desert  sand  gradually  invaded  the  centres  of 
culture  of  Mesopotamia  and  North  Africa. 

Some  of  the  most  wonderful  specimens  of  agri- 
cultural products  or  animal  breeds  have  been  ob- 
tained through  continual  inbreeding.  It  is  not 
therefore  inbreeding  which  influences  the  mental 
quality,  nor  even  the  fact  that  one  of  the  parents  or 
both  are  neurotically  inclined,  but  the  fact  that 
children  are  trained  in  a  neurotic  way. 

Re-education,  however,  mental  or  physical,  is 
fortunately  a  possibility  which  should  never  be 
overlooked. 

We  are  born  with  general  physical  tendencies, 
that  is,  we  reproduce  closely  the  general  type  of 
the  human  variety  to  which  we  belong.  We  receive 
the  bony,  muscular  and  nervous  structure  of  what 
will,  according  to  the  pains  we  take,  become  a 
statue  or  a  scarecrow. 

Imitation  is  mostly  unconscious  and  a  negative 
way  of  dealing  with  problems.  Our  parents  are 
the  first  models  presented  to  us  by  nature  while 
we  are  casting  about  for  some  one  to  imitate.  But 
they  need  not  remain  the  only  models  from  which 
we  shall  shape  our  statue. 

Our  parents  may  have  fleshless  limbs  and  poor 
lungs.  But  we  can  go  to  a  gynasium,  run  around 
the  track,  lift  weights,  breathe  fresh  air,  at  least 

[125] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


all  night  long,  regulate  our  diet  scientifically,  walk 
to  and  from  work. 

Our  parents  may  be  abnormal  mentally,  but  li- 
braries, lecture  halls  and  meeting  places  will  bring 
us  into  contact  with  active  men  and  women  who  are 
normal  and  whom  we  can  imitate,  dispelling  thereby 
the  mental  ghosts  who  thrive  in  the  home  atmos- 
phere. 

Animals  are  creatures  of  their  environment  and 
according  to  whether  that  environment  is  favourable 
or  unfavourable,  they  die  out  or  survive.  Man  is 
the  creator  of  his  environment  and  can  change  his 
surroundings  at  will. 

Most  of  our  heredity  is  a  pseudo-heredity  which, 
being  simply  the  shaping  influence  of  our  environ- 
ment, can  be  defeated  as  soon  as  we  realize  that  it 
is  not  working  for  our  welfare. 

One  question  every  one  of  us  must  ask  himself 
frequently  is:  "Am,* I  myself,  or  am  I  imitating 
some  one  and  if  I  am  imitating  some  one,  am  I  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  least  resistance?" 

Another  question  is:  "Do  I  believe  in  a  certain 
thing  or  have  I  accepted  this  belief  at  some  one's 
suggestion,  and  if  so,  what  necessary  task  am  I 
trying  to  shirk?" 

One  of  KempFs  patients  let  her  parents  bring  her 
up  as  a  perfectly  irresponsible  woman  and  later, 
[126] 


Fate  and  the  Devil 


when  that  irresponsibility  made  her  married  life 
very  unpleasant,  instead  of  re-educating  herself  and 
solving  her  problems  in  a  positive,  constructive 
way,  she  accepted  her  relatives'  dictum  that  "she 
was  crazy,"  and  became  "crazy." 

Kempf  re-educated  her;  after  becoming  herself, 
she  threw  off  the  yoke  of  suggestion  imposed  upon 
her  by  silly  relatives. 

The  day  when  the  combined  power  of  imitation 
and  suggestion  is  realized,  the  knowledge  of  our 
abnormal  ascendance  will  not  trouble  us.  Instead 
of  discouraging  us  and  of  causing  us  to  say  neu- 
rotically: "What  can  I  do  against  such  odds?" 
we  shall  study  carefully  the  ways  in  which  our 
progenitors  or  parents  deviated  from  the  normal 
standard  and  consciously  train  ourselves  to  avoid 
their  physical  and  mental  errors. 

Heredity  shall  cease  to  be  a  menace  and  shall  be- 
come in  certain  cases  a  warning  and  a  guide. 

When  insight  has  delivered  us  from  the  absurd 
belief  in  fate,  in  the  devil  or  some  other  overpower- 
ing metaphysical  force  which  shall  crush  us  and 
compel  us  to  do  what  unconsciously  we  are  crav- 
ing to  do,  we  shall  be  better  off  for  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  our  so-called  hereditary  handicaps. 
We  shall  not  allow  ourselves  to  use  them  neuroti- 
cally as  scapegoats. 

[127] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

William  White's  "Mechanisms  of  Character  Forma- 
tion "  will  enable  the  average  reader  to  complete  a  picture 
which,  owing  to  lack  of  space,  had  to  remain  rather 
sketchy.  Advanced  students  should  read  the  fourth  part 
of  J.  G.  Frazer's  "Golden  Bough"  entitled  "The  Scape- 
goat" in  order  to  fathom  the  psychology  which  has  made 
scapegoats  necessary. 

The  latest  data  on  heredity  can  be  found  in  two 
extremely  technical  volumes  published  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Rockefeller  Institute,  East  and  Jones  "Inbreeding 
and  Outbreeding"  (Lippincott)  and  T.  H.  Morgan  "The 
Physical  Basis  of  Heredity"  (Lippincott). 


[128] 


CHAPTER  IV.    DUAL  PERSONALITIES 

Every  human  being  has  two  personalities:  an 
archaic,  primitive,  childlike,  unadapted  personal- 
ity, and  a  modern,  sophisticated,  adult,  and,  to  all 
appearances,  adapted  personality. 

Civilization  and  education  have  superimposed 
the  second  over  the  first  or  rather  built  over  the  first 
a  thin  crust  of  manners  which  does  not  permit  its 
sharp  angles  to  protrude. 

When  the  operation  of  walling  in  the  archaic  per- 
sonality is  performed  in  a  bungling  way  some  of  its 
sharp  points  have  a  tendency  to  crop  out  and  when 
civilization  tries  to  force  back  all  those  sharp  points 
by  exerting  on  the  thin  crust  a  pressure  which  it 
cannot  bear,  the  archaic  personality  breaks  through 
entirely  and  for  a  certain  period  of  time  refuses 
to  be  buried  again. 

Psychiatrists  of  the  old  school  were  extremely 
puzzled  by  cases  of  double  personality  and  some 
spoke  of  dissociation  of  the  brain,  of  two  separate 
brains,  of  wrong  associations  of  neurons  or  cell 
groups,  etc. 

[129] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


To  the  psychoanalyst,  a  case  of  double  personal- 
ity is  not  any  more  mysterious  than  the  simplest  of 
our  day  or  night  dreams. 

It  is  a  neurosis  which  offers  to  the  subject  a 
means  of  escape  from  reality,  which  enables  him 
to  regress  to  a  mode  of  life  in  which  some  or  all 
of  his  responsibilities  are  removed,  and  which  in 
no  essential  detail  is  different  from  the  various 
forms  of  "insanity"  for  which  psychiatrists  have 
devised  impressive  and  meaningless  designations. 

A  brief  review  of  the  best  known  cases  of  double 
personality  will  help  me  to  make  my  point  clear. 

The  Rev.  Ansel  Bourne  was  a  hard  working 
clergyman  of  excellent  character  and  reputation, 
enjoying  the  confidence  of  all  his  associates.  His 
health  was  good  and  his  muscular  strength  and 
endurance  normal.  Since  childhood  he  had  been 
subject  to  fits  of  "blues,"  and  became  easily  de- 
pressed. 

One  day  he  drew  $500  from  a  bank  in  Provi- 
dence, boarded  a  Pawtucket  car  and  disappeared 
for  two  months.  Then  his  nephew  in  Providence 
received  a  telegram  saying  that  a  man  claiming  to 
be  Rev.  Ansel  Bourne  was  in  Norristown,  Pa.,  act- 
ing strangely. 

The  man  was  not  acting  strangely,  but  very 
normally.  He  was  in  reality  the  Rev.  Ansel 
[130]  ' 


He  Wanted  Rest 


Bourne,  who  suddenly  had  found  himself  in  a 
strange  town  and  in  a  small  fruit  store. 

Six  weeks  before  his  awakening,  Bourne  had 
gone  to  Norristown,  rented  a  small  store,  stocked 
it  with  candy  and  fruit  and  had  been  doing  business 
as  A.  Brown,  living  in  the  back  of  his  shop  where 
he  cooked  his  own  meals.  His  manners  never  at- 
tracted any  one's  attention.  He  went  regularly  to 
church,  and  once,  at  a  prayer  meeting,  made  a 
rather  good  address. 

When  the  awakening  came  and  he  regained  his 
former  personality,  he  was  very  weak  and  had 
lost  over  twenty  pounds  in  weight. 

William  James  examined  him  and  induced  him 
to  submit  to  hypnotism.  In  hypnosis  the  Brown 
personality  came  to  the  fore  with  surprising  readi- 
ness and  with  such  insistence  that  the  subject  could 
not  remember  any  of  the  facts  of  his  life  as  Ansel 
Bourne. 

Brown  didn't  even  "know"  Ansel  Bourne  and 
repeated  constantly  that  he  felt  "hedged  in  at  both 
ends."  He  could  not  remember  any  of  the  inci- 
dents preceding  the  ride  to  Pawtucket,  nor  any  of 
those  following  his  awakening  in  Norristown.  The 
only  explanation  he  gave  for  his  escapade  was  that 
"there  was  trouble  back  there"  and  "he  wanted 


rest." 


[131] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


In  this  case  the  first  personality  did  not  know 
the  second,  nor  did  the  second  know  the  first. 

In  other  cases  one  of  the  personalities  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  other,  or  both  knew  each  other 
and  in  one  case  there  was  a  distinct  feeling  of  scorn 
and  hatred,  in  the  other  a  deep  friendship  mani- 
fested by  both  personalities  for  each  other. 

Miss  Beauchamp,  studied  by  Morton  Prince,  was 
a  serious  minded  person,  fond  of  books  and  study, 
very  idealistic,  "with  a  morbid  New  England  con- 
scientiousness" and  a  great  deal  of  pride  and  re- 
serve, very  unwilling  to  expose  herself  or  her  life 
to  any  one's  scrutiny. 

One  day  "owing  to  some  nervous  excitement"  she 
became  an  entirely  different  personality.  She 
called  herself  Sally,  a  creature  full  of  fun,  unable 
to  take  anything  seriously,  scorning  books  and 
churchgoing,  eager  for  all  forms  of  amusement, 
lacking  all  the  educational  accomplishments  of  Miss 
Beauchamp,  such  as  a  knowledge  of  foreign  lan- 
guages and  stenography. 

Miss  Beauchamp  was  a  neurasthenic,  Sally  was 
always  well,  never  fatigued  and  never  seemed  to 
suffer  pain. 

During  the  first  year,  Miss  Beauchamp  and  Sally 
constantly  alternated  with  one  another.  Whenever 
Miss  Beauchamp  felt  tired  or  upset,  Sally  used  to 
[132] 


Sally's  Sense  of  Humor 


appear,  sometimes  for  a  few  minutes,  sometimes 
for  several  hours.  Later,  Sally's  appearances 
lasted  several  days  at  a  time. 

Miss  Beauchamp  never  knew  Sally,  but  Sally 
knew  everything  about  Miss  Beauchamp.  Further- 
more Sally  hated  her  and  said  so  very  frankly. 

She  went  as  far  as  playing  tricks  on  her  to  annoy 
her.  She  would  mail  to  Miss  Beauchamp  a  box 
full  of  spiders  and  snakes,  she  would  ride  to  the 
end  of  a  trolley  line  without  return  carfare  and 
oblige  her  to  walk  miles  or  beg  rides  from  passing 
wagons;  she  would  unravel  her  knitting,  she  wrote 
her  annoying  letters,  etc. 

Alma  Z.,  observed  for  ten  years  by  Dr.  Osgood 
Mason,  had  been  in  robust  health  until  her  18th 
year,  when  "owing  to  overwork  at  school,"  she 
underwent  a  curious  change.  She  had  been  until 
then  an  educated,  thoughtful,  dignified,  feminine 
type.  She  suddenly  became  a  cheerful,  sprightly, 
childish  person,  ungrammatical,  and  using  a  pecu- 
liarly limited  vocabulary. 

She  called  herself  Twoey  and  referred  to  her  first 
personality  as  No.  1.  Twoey  would  at  first  only 
remain  a  few  hours  but  later  her  stay  was  pro- 
longed to  several  days. 

While  "1"  and  "2"  were  apparently  in  every 
respect  separate  and  distinct  personalities,  each 

[133] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


took  up  life  and  its  occupations  where  the  other  had 
left  off. 

Twoey  knew  "No.  1"  well  and  "No.  1"  became 
acquainted  with  Twoey  through  the  descriptions 
given  her  by  others. 

The  two  personalities  became  great  friends. 
Twoey  admired  "No.  1"  for  her  superior  knowl- 
edge, her  patience  in  suffering  and  the  lovely  quali- 
ties which  she  recognized  and  she  willingly  took  her 
place  to  give  her  rest. 

"No.  1"  also  became  fond  of  Twoey  on  account 
of  the  loving  care  she  bestowed  upon  her  and  her 
affairs  and  for  her  witty  sayings  which  she  greatly 
enjoyed. 

As  Alma  Z.'s  health  improved,  Twoey's  visits 
became  scarce,  and  only  coincided  with  conditions 
of  extreme  fatigue  or  mental  excitement. 

Then  Alma  married  and  became  an  excellent 
wife  and  an  efficient  mistress  of  the  household. 

One  night,  however,  Twoey  re-appeared  but 
merely  to  announce  that  she  was  to  disappear  and 
that  another  personality,  "The  Boy,"  would  take 
her  place.  The  Boy  submitted  to  all  the  duties 
which  Alma  had  to  discharge  but  when  questioned 
persisted  in  declaring  her  male  and  youthful  char- 
acter. Alma  knew  Latin,  mathematics,  and 
philosophy,  she  had  memorized  entire  poems  by 
[134] 


What  Music  Did 


Tennyson,  Browning  and  Scott.  The  Boy  was 
absolutely  ignorant,  although  he  had  an  intelligent 
grasp  of  affairs  and  manifested  a  keen  enjoyment 
of  theatrical  and  musical  performances. 

One  evening  at  a  concert  in  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House,  the  Boy  suddenly  disappeared  and 
Alma  returned  for  a  few  minutes,  but  Alma  soon 
closed  her  eyes  and  assumed  the  harsher,  more 
masculine  countenance  of  her  boyish  personality. 

The  Boy  knew  Twoey  and  "No.  1"  and  liked 
both  of  them.  Like  Twoey  he  expressed  a  constant 
desire  that  "No.  1"  should  get  well  and  not  need 
him  any  more. 

Ansel  Bourne  had  regressed  to  a  lower  intel- 
lectual level,  but  remained  on  an  adult  level.  Miss 
Beauchamp  and  Alma  Z.  regressed  to  childhood. 
In  the  case  of  Mary  Reynolds,  we  will  observe  a 
regression  to  infancy  and  in  that  of  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Carson  Hanna,  to  the  condition  of  the  newborn. 

Mary  Reynolds,  treated  by  Dr.  S.  Weir  Mitchell, 
was  a  shy,  morose,  melancholy  woman.  She  had 
suffered  frequently  from  convulsions,  loss  of  con- 
sciousness, loss  of  sight  and  hearing. 

After  having  been  greatly  weakened  by  a  severe 
attack,  she  fell  into  a  deep  sleep  from  which  she 
could  not  at  first  be  aroused. 

On  awaking  she  was  found  to  have  lost  all  her 

[135] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


former  knowledge,  to  be  unable  to  recognize  her 
environment  or  any  of  her  friends. 

She  still  knew  how  to  eat,  drink  and  walk,  but 
she  could  neither  speak  nor  understand  spoken 
words.  She  was  an  infant,  mumbling  disconnected 
words.  In  her  second  state  she  was  gay,  lively  and 
playful. 

The  transition  from  "1"  to  "2"  always  took  place 
at  night,  that  from  "2"  to  "1"  during  the  day  time. 

No  case  has  been  more  completely  described  than 
that  of  Rev.  Thomas  Carson  Hanna,  treated  by  Dr. 
Boris  Sidis  and  Dr.  S.  P.  Goodhart. 

Rev.  Hanna  had  never  suffered  from  any  illness 
up  to  his  twenty-fourth  year  when  the  slight  acci- 
dent, following  which  his  personality  changed,  took 
place. 

He  was  a  versatile  man,  endowed  with  not  only 
intellectual,  but  mechanical  ability,  showing  artis- 
tic taste  in  many  directions;  he  had  a  strong  will 
and  perfect  self-control.  He  was  not  demonstrative 
in  his  affections  and  was  influenced  more  easily  by 
reason  than  by  emotion. 

One  evening,  returning  home  in  his  carriage,  he 
lost  his  footing  while  alighting,  fell  head  foremost 
and  remained  unconscious  for  two  hours.  When 
he  regained  his  consciousness  he  had  become  as 
helpless  as  a  newborn  infant.  He  could  neither 
[136] 


Return  to  Infancy 


speak  nor  understand  what  was  said  to  him.  He 
did  not  know  how  to  control  his  voluntary  muscles, 
he  could  not  walk.  He  had  no  conception  of  dis- 
tance or  time. 

When  food  was  offered  to  him  he  did  not  under- 
stand the  purpose  of  it;  nor,  when  it  was  placed  in 
his  mouth,  did  he  know  how  to  masticate  and  swal- 
low it.  It  was  only  when  food  was  forced  upon 
him  and  thrust  far  back  into  the  pharynx  and  reflex 
swallowing  movements  excited,  that  he  realized  the 
purpose  of  food  and  learned  the  way  of  taking  it. 

Like  an  infant,  he  satisfied  his  natural  needs 
without  regard  to  time  or  place.  Like  an  infant, 
he  began  to  learn  a  few  words  by  imitating  definite 
articulate  sounds  made  in  connection  with  certain 
objects.  The  first  word  he  learnt  was  "apple" 
which  to  him  meant  all  kinds  of  food. 

His  intelligence,  however,  was  that  of  an  adult. 
His  memory  was  excellent.  A  word  once  heard 
seemed  indelibly  impressed  on  his  mind  and  he 
never  again  forgot  it. 

Like  an  infant,  he  was  trying  to  grasp  things  be- 
yond his  reach,  such  as  a  tree  he  saw  out  of  the  win- 
dow. Like  an  infant,  he  did  not  at  first  discrimi- 
nate between  his  motions  and  those  of  other  people. 
Nor  did  he  analyse  complicated  objects  into  their 
component  parts;  a  man,  a  man  on  a  bicycle,  and  a 

[137] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


man  sitting  in  a  buggy  were  to  him  three  different 
kinds  of  men.  Life  and  motion  were  at  first 
synonymous  to  him. 

He  gradually  learnt  to  speak,  to  walk,  to  sing 
and  to  play  instruments  but  he  only  knew  the  things 
he  had  studied  since  his  change  of  personality  had 
taken  place.  Everything  and  everybody  he  had 
known  previous  to  that  time  was  absolutely  forgot- 
ten. Once,  the  reading  aloud  to  him  of  a  Hebrew 
passage  with  which  he  was  familiar  brought  to  con- 
sciousness a  flow  of  Hebrew  quotations  which  he, 
however,  did  not  understand. 

Seven  weeks  after  the  accident,  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  awoke  to  find  himself 
in  a  strange  house  in  New  York  City.  He  de- 
manded explanations  from  his  brother  who  was 
sharing  his  room. 

When  Dr.  Goodhart,  at  whose  house  he  was 
staying,  came  into  the  room  he  took  him  for  a  per- 
fect stranger. 

All  memory  of  the  events  intervening  between 
April  15  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  and  June 
8  in  the  early  morning  had  faded. 

In  fact  he  resumed  his  conscious  life  at  the  very 
hour  of  the  day  when  he  had  sunk  into  unconscious- 
ness and  insisted  that  it  must  be  evening.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  recounted  as  a  part  of  his  actual 
[138] 


The  Final  Crisis 


life  some  of  the  incidents  of  which  he  had  been 
dreaming  in  hypnoidic  states  of  his  second  person- 
ality. 

On  June  9  about  4  P.  M.  he  fell  asleep  and  when 
he  awoke  he  had  relapsed  into  his  second  person- 
ality. This  time,  however,  he  merely  continued 
the  life  he  had  led  before  in  that  state  and  carried 
on  the  memories  of  it.  He  had  not  regressed  fur- 
ther than  that. 

He  gained  much  insight  into  his  condition  and, 
when  told  by  his  brother  of  his  various  changes 
of  personality,  appeared  greatly  depressed.  He 
asked  anxiously  whether  there  would  not  be  a  third 
state  in  which  he  would  not  remember  either  his 
normal  or  his  second  personalities. 

All  sorts  of  stimulation  were  resorted  to,  from 
chemicals  to  a  variety  performance,  in  order  to 
arouse  his  mental  activity.  In  his  secondary  state, 
the  young  clergyman  enjoyed  keenly  the  antics  of 
the  performers,  drank  beer  with  pleasure,  etc. 

After  innumerable  changes  of  personality,  gener- 
ally preceded  by  sleep,  Hanna  merged  on  June  14 
into  a  curious  state  resembling  mental  stupor.  To 
questions  put  to  him  and  bearing  upon  his  two  dif- 
ferent personalities  he  answered  very  slowly  and 
with  great  difficulty  as  though  he  were  in  both  states 
at  the  same  time. 

[139] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


For  several  days  he  remained  in  that  condition; 
gradually  his  mind  became  clear  and  he  informed 
the  physicians  treating  him  that  he  had  passed 
through  an  intense  mental  struggle.  The  two  per- 
sonalities, his  normal  and  his  second  personalities, 
arose  simultaneously  and  confronted  each  other. 
Each  of  them  was  Hanna  and  yet  they  were  different 
from  each  other.  He  could  not  choose  one  only 
because  both  were  of  the  same  nature ;  and  yet  they 
were  too  dissimilar  to  be  joined. 

Each  personality  rose  and  fell  in  turn.  "The 
struggle,"  he  said  to  his  physicians,  "was  not  so 
much  to  choose  one  as  to  forget  the  other.  I  was 
trying  to  find  out  which  I  might  most  easily  forget. 
It  seemed  impossible  to  forget  one;  both  tried  to  per- 
sist in  consciousness.  It  seemed  as  if  each  memory 
was  stronger  than  my  will,  and  still  I  had  to  deter- 
mine which  to  drive  away.  Just  before  lunch, 
yesterday,  in  the  psychological  laboratory,  I  chose 
the  secondary  life;  it  was  strong  and  fresh  and  was 
able  to  persist.  ...  At  that  time  the  question  arose 
whether  I  could  not  possibly  take  both.  ...  I 
decided  to  accept  both  lives  as  mine,  a  condition 
that  could  not  be  worse  than  the  uncertainty  I  was 
in.  I  then  felt  that  the  oft-repeated  struggle  would 
ruin  my  mind.  .  .  .  /  am  sure  both  are  mine. 
They  are  separate  and  I  cannot  yet  fit  the  two 
[140] 


What  Preceded  the  Change 


well  together.  .  .  .  Secondary  and  primary  states 
have  breaks  and  intervals  in  them,  as  though  there 
were  periods  of  sleep.  The  secondary  state  is 
stronger  and  brighter,  but  not  more  stable." 

Harmony  gradually  re-entered  Hanna's  mind 
and  the  two  personalities  were  merged  into  a  new 
and  healthy  one,  a  compromise  between  the  over- 
worked, overcivilized,  over-repressed  man  of  yore 
and  the  primitive,  uncivilized  and  unadapted  child 
who  for  three  months  had  tried  to  prevail. 

In  all  but  one  of  the  cases  I  have  reviewed  and  in 
many  others  which  can  be  found  in  the  literature  of 
the  subject,  the  change  in  personality  was  preceded 
by  some  "crisis."  The  crisis  is  not  mentioned  in 
Hanna's  case  but  might  have  been  found  if  the 
psychiatrists  treating  the  patient  had  inquired  into 
the  events  preceding  the  "accident."  They  prob- 
ably, as  was  usual  in  those  days  (1897),  considered 
the  accident  as  the  primary  factor  in  the  mental 
derangement.  Hanna's  fall  may  have  been,  how- 
ever, what  Freud  calls  a  semi-intentional  self- 
inflicted  injury. 

Ansel  Bourne  was  fleeing  from  "trouble  back 
there"  and  "wanted  rest,"  Miss  Beauchamp  was 
overcome  by  "some  nervous  excitement,"  Alma  Z. 
was  a  victim  of  "overwork,"  Mary  Reynolds  had 
been  weakened  "by  a  severe  attack." 

[141] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


In  every  case  the  subject,  instead  of  evolving  into 
a  more  complex,  more  intelligent,  more  developed 
personality,  regressed  to  a  more  primitive  one. 
The  change  implied  an  easier  mode  of  living,  fewer 
duties  and  responsibilities. 

In  the  case  of  Alma  Z.,  "The  Boy"  was  obviously 
trying  to  save  the  normal  personality  from  wifely 
duties.  A.  Brown,  fruit  dealer,  avoided  much  of 
the  mental  exertion  Rev.  Bourne  had  to  undergo. 
Sallie  did  not  have  to  live  up  to  the  intellectual 
standard  Miss  Beauchamp  had  set  for  herself. 
Mary  Reynolds  and  Hanna,  becoming  infants,  let 
the  world  minister  to  all  their  needs. 

Every  change  of  personality  either  took  place 
at  night  or  after  a  period  of  sleep,  the  second  per- 
sonality appearing  preferably  at  night,  the  normal 
personality  re-appearing  preferably  in  the  day  time. 
The  second  personality  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  pro- 
tracted dream,  and  the  fact  that  it  appeared  at 
night  in  so  many  cases,  lends  credibility  to  that 
view. 

The  second  personality  appears  in  every  case  as  a 
morbid  wish-fulfilment,  as  a  negative  striving  along 
a  fictitious  life-line,  along  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance. Every  one  of  the  subjects  observed  was 
probably  a  person  harassed  and  worn  out  by  either 
monotonous  tasks  or  an  exaggerated  sense  of  duty. 
[142] 


Leading  an  Easier  Life 


The  playful  or  infantile  personalities  into  which 
they  merged  temporarily,  took  abnormally  the  vaca- 
tion they  themselves  should  have  taken  normally. 

They  all  had  repressed,  if  not  over-repressed, 
the  old  Adam,  and  the  old  Adam  avenged  himself 
by  bursting  forth  and  assuming  the  upper  hand. 
How  many  cases  of  so-called  "insanity"  are  simply 
due  to  the  persistency  of  a  second  personality 
which  happens  to  be  too  violent  or  absurd  to  be 
tolerable  in  its  environment.  A  patient  now  con- 
fined at  Ward's  Island  became  insane  after  being 
hit  on  the  head  by  a  small  tin  can  which  did  not 
even  abrase  the  skin.  A  journeyman  before  the 
accident,  he  has  become  a  famous  opera  singer 
and  holds  frequent  conversations  with  God.  He, 
too,  has  entered  an  easier  life,  doing  no  manual 
labour,  enjoying  a  prestige  he  could  never  aspire  to 
in  his  former  occupation  and  unburdened  of  the 
care  of  his  family;  the  fulfilment  of  a  dream  which 
may  have  originated  in  the  unconscious  moments 
following  the  accident;  another  case  in  which  the 
accident  seems  to  have  been  a  "pretext"  seized  by 
the  unconscious  rather  than  a  positive  cause. 

The  more  things  we  lack  in  our  waking  states, 
the  more  things  we  shall  expect  and  receive  from 
our  dreams,  but  many  of  our  dream  accomplish- 
ments are  archaic,  regressive,  infantile.  Not  in- 

[143] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


frequently  when  our  conscious  self  deprives  itself 
of  gratifications  which  human  nature  craves,  our 
unconscious  self  overpowers  it  and  proceeds  to  lead 
even  in  our  waking  states  a  more  human,  more 
comfortable,  sort  of  life.  Like  all  the  results  of 
violent  upheavals,  however,  that  life  is  likely  to  be 
unbalanced  and  unadapted  to  our  environment. 
The  ascetic  saints  who,  in  their  scorn  of  the  flesh, 
fled  into  the  desert,  were  a  prey  to  horrible  halluci- 
nations in  which  they  beheld  all  the  obscenities 
which  consciously  they  had  been  avoiding  but  for 
which  they  unconsciously  had  been  craving. 

Our  archaic,  unconscious  self  is  a  lusty  caveman 
whose  cravings  modern  civilization  can  no  longer 
satisfy.  He  must,  however,  be  appeased  now  and 
then  by  being  given  a  sop  of  some  sort.  Starving 
him  can  only  bring  about  his  revolt;  his  attempts 
to  free  himself  may  mean  sick  headaches,  hysteria, 
obsessions,  phobias,  "insanity"  or  the  appearance 
of  a  new  man  in  the  body  of  the  old,  the  domination 
of  a  second  personality  for  a  more  or  less  extended 
period  of  time. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

SIDIS  and  GOODHART,  "Multiple  Personality"  (Apple- 
ton)  will  supply  the  reader  with  a  history  of  the  best 
known  cases.  Neither  of  the  authors  is  a  psychoanalyst, 
[144] 


Bibliography 


one  of  them,  Dr.  Sidis,  being  in  fact,  bitterly  opposed 
to  that  science. 

Their  observations,  however,  are  very  valuable  and 
do  not  in  any  way  contradict  those  made  by  exponents  of 
psychoanalysis. 


[145] 


CHAPTER  V.    HOW  ONE  WOMAN  BECAME 

INSANE 

Psychoanalysts  seldom  have  the  opportunity  of 
treating  any  of  the  "great  psychoses."  The  patient 
who  has  lost  all  insight  into  his  mental  condition 
is  generally  confined  in  an  institution  and  few  in- 
sane asylums  have  analysts  on  their  medical  staff. 

One  case  treated  by  Dr.  Kempf  at  St.  Elizabeth 
Hospital,  Washington,  D.  C.,  offers  good  evidence 
that  many  apparently  "desperate"  cases  could  be 
cured  by  the  psychoanalytic  technique. 

If  an  abstract  of  that  case  is  presented  to  the 
reader,  it  is  not  merely  owing  to  the  success  which 
crowned  Dr.  Kempf's  efforts,  but  because  it  offers, 
besides,  a  striking  and  grewsome  picture  of  the 
process  by  which  people  are  at  times  "driven  to  in- 
sanity." 

It  shows  how  well-meaning  associates,  lacking  in 
sympathy  and  understanding,  beset  with  many 
prejudices  and  affected  by  complexes  of  their  own, 
may  gradually  make  reality  so  unbearable  for  a 
weaker  individual  that  he  unconsciously  seeks  to 
[146] 


A  Puritanical  Father 


escape  it  by  the  door  which  leads  to  an  insane 
asylum. 

The  various  relapses  which  Kempf's  patient  suf- 
fered before  she  regained  her  normal  balance  il- 
lustrate perhaps  more  impressively  than  any  other 
detail  of  the  case  that  process  of  abnormal  escape 
from  unpleasant  situations. 

The  influence  which  education  may  have  in  de- 
termining the  content  of  psychopathic  fancies 
was  made  very  clear  by  the  analysis  of  Kempf's 
patient. 

The  patient  was  a  young  woman  of  twenty-four, 
married  and  the  mother  of  a  child.  She  was  the 
youngest  of  several  children. 

Her  father  was  an  engineer,  a  hard-worker,  sav- 
ing to  the  point  of  being  stingy  and  obsessed  by  the 
fear  of  being  destitute  in  his  old  age.  He  loved 
his  children  but  tended  to  conflict  with  them  owing 
to  his  prudishness.  All  sexual  topics  were  taboo 
in  his  home.  He  berated  his  daughters  when  they 
sat  with  their  legs  crossed,  he  objected  to  their  wear- 
ing kimonos.  He  owned  some  houses  in  a  distant 
city  which  were  for  a  time,  through  no  fault  of  his 
own,  converted  into  brothels. 

In  his  later  years  he  depended  upon  his  oldest 
daughter  to  manage  his  affairs  and  persistently  in- 
clined to  treat  the  youngest  as  a  child.  At  the 

[147] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


time  of  the  patient's  illness,  he  was  about  seventy 
years  old  and  suffering  from  chronic  gastritis. 

The  mother  was  a  "nervous,"  kind,  home  loving 
woman,  tall  and  heavy,  and  extremely  fond  of  eat- 
ing. She,  like  her  husband,  encouraged  her  oldest 
daughter  to  be  self-reliant  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
trained  her  youngest  daughter  to  depend  upon  her 
in  every  way,  introducing  her  to  visitors  as  the 
baby.  She  never  allowed  the  "baby"  to  have  any 
initiative  and  imposed  her  will  upon  her  in  all  mat- 
ters, telling  her  what  style  and  material  to  select 
for  her  clothes,  what  to  wear  for  the  day,  how  to 
act,  to  whom  to  talk,  etc. 

Like  her  husband,  she  also  excluded  from  her 
conversation  all  matters  pertaining  to  sex  and  never 
tolerated  any  intimate  confidence  on  the  part  of 
her  children.  The  patient  was  whipped  at  the  age 
of  eleven  for  asking  her  mother  about  the  meaning 
of  a  word  she  read  in  a  toilet  and  for  relating  to 
her  her  fancies  in  connection  with  that  word. 

The  patient's  oldest  sister  was  mentally  and 
physically  very  like  the  mother  and  she,  too,  de- 
manded constant  submission  to  her  decisions  and 
opinions  on  the  part  of  the  patient. 

In  other  words  the  patient's  training  had  un- 
fitted her  for  self-reliance  and  efficiency  in  real 
life.  She  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  that  arrange- 
[148] 


Prurient  Modesty 


ment  and  even  was  inclined  to  treat  her  own  in- 
efficiency and  irresponsibility  as  a  joke.  She  was 
a  lazy  and  rather  obese  type  of  girl.  Her  educa- 
tion was  never  planned  systematically  and  she 
missed  many  school  days  on  whimsical  pretexts. 

Her  early  curiosity  in  regard  to  sexual  problems 
only  met  with  rebuke  and  on  several  occasions  with 
punishment. 

Her  parents'  prudishness  only  increased  her  in- 
terest in  all  things  pertaining  to  reproduction. 
She  watched  excitedly  cats,  dogs,  chickens,  horses 
and  derived  much  secret  enjoyment  from  her  ob- 
servation of  their  sexual  behaviour.  On  the  other 
hand  she  would  be  morbidly  embarrassed  by  the 
sight  of  a  woman  nursing  a  child. 

Her  father  considered  it  indecent  for  her  to  sit 
on  his  lap.  When  her  sister  began  to  menstruate 
and  she  tried  to  secure  information  as  to  that  phe- 
nomenon, her  mother  scolded  her  and  sent  her  to 
her  room.  She  felt  then  that  she  lived  on  a  plane 
beneath  her  mother  and  her  sister  and  she  devel- 
oped a  distinct  feeling  of  inferiority. 

She  trained  herself  never  to  ask  questions  be- 
cause they  might  expose  her  thoughts  and  she  would 
have  remained  in  absolute  ignorance  of  sexual 
facts  but  for  the  romantic  stories  told  her  by  a 
coloured  maid  who  had  been  employed  once  in  a 

[149] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


house  of  prostitution.  Those  stories  simply  set  her 
imagination  on  fire  and  far  from  enlightening  her, 
caused  her  to  derive  sexual  suggestions  from  al- 
most everything  in  her  environment,  the  behaviour 
of  her  father  and  mother,  the  sight  of  attractive 
women,  etc. 

At  twenty-one,  she  married  a  young  man  whose 
family  was  in  almost  every  respect  quite  the  op- 
posite of  her  own. 

His  father  was  also  an  engineer,  but  younger 
than  the  patient's  father,  a  free  spender  and  fond 
of  gay  parties. 

The  patient's  mother-in-law  was  a  handsome 
woman  with  a  girlish  figure,  small  feet  and  ankles, 
well  dressed,  who  had  travelled  a  good  deal  and 
had  a  wide  range  of  interests.  She  was  proud  of 
her  youthful  appearance  and  dieted  in  order  to 
keep  herself  attractive  looking. 

The  patient's  husband  was  a  slender  man  who 
at  thirty  had  the  figure  of  a  wiry,  active  boy  of 
twenty.  He  also  was  an  engineer,  ambitious, 
earnest,  spoiled  by  his  mother,  and  at  times  irrita- 
ble and  impulsive. 

During  their  engagement,  the  patient  never  al- 
lowed her  fiance  to  kiss  her  or  to  put  his  arm 
around  her.  She  was  terribly  upset  and  almost 
gave  him  up  when  he  confessed  to  her  that  he  had 
[150] 


The  Husband's  Plight 


had  a  hard  struggle  with  his  desire  to  masturbate 
and  had  consorted  with  other  girls.  She  never 
communicated  her  wish  to  desert  him  to  any  one 
then  but  later  in  her  psychose  felt  sure  that  their 
marriage  was  not  legal. 

At  that  time  she  finally  demanded  that  her 
mother  enlighten  her  as  to  the  origin  of  children 
and  she  felt  extremely  shocked  by  her  mother's 
explanation  and  always  hated  her  in  later  life  for 
having  deceived  her  so  long. 

After  the  novelty  of  their  relation  and  the  ex- 
citement attendant  upon  the  first  months  of  mar- 
ried life  had  worn  away,  her  husband  began  to  be 
disturbed  by  what  he  called  "asinine  thoughts." 
He  could  not  understand  why  dainty  feet,  hairless 
limbs,  small  firm  breasts  and  a  small  abdomen 
(his  mother's  characteristics)  should  prove  so  at- 
tractive to  him  and  why  large  soft  breasts,  a  large 
abdomen,  heavy  feet  and  ankles  and  hairy  limbs 
(his  wife's  characteristics)  should  prove  sexually 
depressing. 

He  was  undoubtedly  conscious  of  his  mother- 
fixation  and  in  his  more  or  less  conscious  endeavour 
to  escape  incest  had  selected  for  his  mate  the  op- 
posite type  of  a  woman.  His  mother-fixation  was 
clearly  revealed  by  incestuous  dreams  which  pur- 
sued him  even  after  his  marriage. 

[151] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


He  was  greatly  relieved  later  when  told  of  the 
simple  biological  significance  of  such  dreams. 
Realizing  obscurely  to  what  causes  his  growing  sex- 
ual indifference  to  his  wife  was  due,  he  tried  to  in- 
duce her  to  diet,  to  exercise  (in  order  to  reduce 
her  abdomen  and  breasts)  and  to  remove  the  hair 
from  her  ankles.  After  a  while  she  gave  up  those 
practices  which  would  have  made  her  a  little  more 
similar  to  the  mother-image  and  became  careless 
about  her  appearance. 

The  two  families  did  not  harmonize  at  all.  Her 
family  appeared  too  coarse  and  bigoted  to  her  hus- 
band's family  which  in  turn  was  scorned  by  her 
family  for  its  freer  views  and  extravagance.  The 
two  families  naturally  made  the  unfortunate  young 
woman  their  common  battle  ground  because  she 
was  weak  and  unsophisticated. 

Her  husband  caused  her  much  distress  by  threat- 
ening to  leave  her  if  she  lost  her  beauty,  if  she  did 
not  take  better  care  of  her  appearance,  or  did  not 
write  to  him  daily  when  he  was  away. 

Her  sexual  life  was  naturally  very  unsatisfac- 
tory and  she  masturbated  during  her  pregnancy, 
after  which  she  was  overwhelmed  with  shame.  To 
make  matters  worse,  her  sister  told  her  that  mas- 
turbation was  a  symptom  of  insanity.  She  was 
obsessed  by  the  fear  that  her  child  might  inherit 
[152] 


Dangerous  Sex  Books 


her  bad  habits.  When  the  child  was  born  and  her 
husband  showed  a  good  deal  of  indifference  to  it, 
his  threats  to  leave  her  caused  her  more  and  more 
anxiety. 

Both  families  resumed  their  strife  over  the  child. 
Her  mother-in-law  insisted  upon  plenty  of  fresh 
air  for  the  infant  and  her  own  mother  protested 
that  they  were  freezing  it.  The  patient's  mother 
finally  assumed  complete  charge  of  the  child  and 
treated  it  like  her  own. 

When  her  husband  was  away,  his  mother  berated 
her  for  not  travelling  with  him;  her  mother  ob- 
jected to  this  because  she  would  neglect  the  baby 
by  going  to  meet  her  husband  out  of  town. 

She  was  made  to  regard  herself  as  a  failure,  both 
as  a  wife  and  as  a  mother.  Her  husband,  thor- 
oughly frightened  but  well-meaning,  decided  then 
to  educate  her.  For  that  purpose  he  gave  her  an 
absurd  book  on  "sexology"  filled  with  moralizing 
platitudes  on  masturbation  and  perversions.  The 
only  conclusion  she  drew  from  reading  that  drivel 
was  that  she  was  a  pervert  and  a  degenerate,  abso- 
lutely unfit  to  raise  her  child,  and  that  her  child  was 
doomed  to  become  abnormal. 

She  had  fits  of  crying  and  depression  and  often 
told  her  family  she  wished  she,  her  husband  and 
baby  were  dead.  She  spoke  of  her  husband  re- 

[153] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


marrying  and  asked  her  sister  to  take  care  of  the 
baby  when  she  married  her  husband.  She  in- 
dulged more  and  more  in  masturbation  and  began 
to  speak  of  it  openly.  Delusions  appeared.  She 
thought  people  sneered  at  her  "as  if  she  was  passing 
disgusting  odours."  She  insisted  that  she  was  not 
her  father's  daughter  but  a  prostitute  in  a  house 
kept  by  her  father;  she  thought  she  saw  a  picture 
of  herself  in  tights  in  the  Police  Gazette;  she  was 
afraid  medicines  might  contain  poison.  Finally 
she  drank  tincture  of  iodine  in  an  attempt  to  kill 
herself  and  thereupon  was  taken  to  a  sanatorium. 

In  that  institution  which  she,  in  her  delusions, 
considered  as  a  house  of  prostitution,  some  stupid 
nurses  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  playing  upon 
her  sexual  fears  and  told  her  many  weird  sadistic 
stories  of  immorality.  Pursued  by  erotic  fancies 
she  tried  hard  to  resist  her  cravings  and  adopted 
no  end  of  devices  to  save  herself  from  masturba- 
tion. She  experienced  a  profound  sense  of  her 
sinfulness  and  her  letters  to  her  husband  contained 
many  references  to  her  worthlessness,  to  the%  fact 
that  she  had  ruined  her  baby,  etc. 

She  was  then  removed  from  the  sanatorium  to 
St.  Elizabeth  Hospital. 

Her  husband  was  deeply  affected  by  his  wife's 
mental  derangement  and  was  conscious  of  his  re- 
[154] 


The  Cause  of  Relapses 


sponsibility  for  her  depression  and  anxiety.  His 
first  visits  were  very  cautiously  conducted  and  he 
always  sought  advice  as  to  what  to  say  to  her.  She 
reacted  in  a  gratifying  way  to  his  kind  attitude. 

She  gradually  accorded  Dr.  Kempf  her  confi- 
dence and  learned  to  depend  upon  him  for  assur- 
ance and  encouragement.  She  became  adjusted 
to  a  higher  level  of  interest. 

Suddenly,  however,  she  began  to  regress,  revert- 
ing to  her  prostitution  fancies.  The  cause  was 
not  far  to  seek. 

One  day  her  husband,  losing  his  patience,  had 
in  the  course  of  a  visit  threatened  again  to  leave 
her  if  she  did  not  get  well.  She  learnt  also  that  he 
had  been  drinking. 

Some  time  afterward  she  had  another  regression 
which  was  traced  again  to  some  stupid  statements 
made  by  her  husband.  Her  mother  had  died  and 
willed  all  her  property  to  the  patient's  father  which 
necessitated  the  signature  of  all  the  heirs,  including 
the  patient.  Her  husband  had  carried  the  will  in 
his  pocket  for  several  days  trying  to  decide  whether 
or  not  he  would  sign  it.  He  brought  up  the  whole 
family  conflict  again  and  told  the  patient  that  her 
mother  must  have  been  insane  when  she  made  that 
will.  They  were  together  at  the  patient's  dance 
when  it  occurred  and  she  changed  in  a  few  minutes 

[155] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


from  a  state  of  hopefulness  and  promise  to  one  of 
serious  confusion  and  inaccessibility. 

This  lasted  nearly  two  weeks  and  then  she  be- 
came more  cheerful. 

Then  the  family  difficulties  were  once  more  de- 
pressed upon  her  by  her  husband,  sister  and  father 
and  this  time  she  regressed  almost  completely  to 
a  prenatal  attitude.  She  was  afraid  of  being 
smothered  in  boxes,  of  being  passed  into  the  toilet 
with  feces,  she  had  all  sorts  of  terrifying  hallucina- 
tions. 

Her  dreams,  however,  showed  affective  trends 
which  suggested  that  a  reconstruction  was  possible. 
She  developed  more  and  more  interest  in  her  en- 
vironment, her  child,  her  husband.  She  gathered 
much  insight  into  her  condition  and  could  analyse 
her  delusions  very  skilfully. 

About  the  twenty-third  week  she  had  rallied  so 
far  that  a  nurse  took  her  out  to  visit  her  people. 
Then  the  old  family  quarrel  about  spending  money 
flared  up  again.  The  patient  wished  to  change  the 
arrangement  of  the  furniture  and  her  sister,  as 
domineering  as  ever,  prevented  her  from  asserting 
herself  even  during  her  brief  stay  at  home.  She 
returned  to  the  hospital  angry  and  worried. 

She  had  too  much  insight  by  that  time,  owing 
to  the  psychoanalytic  treatment  she  had  been  un- 
[156] 


Her  Re-education 


dergoing,  to  regress  very  far.  She  recovered  and 
was  finally  discharged. 

Two  months  afterward,  a  crisis  confronted  her 
again.  She  was  pregnant  and  some  members  of 
her  family  were  urging  her  to  resort  to  an  abortion. 
She  managed  to  assert  herself,  however,  and  bore 
the  child. 

When  she  was  discharged  from  the  hospital,  she 
seemed  to  be  uncomfortable  about  two  things,  her 
inability  to  find  a  religion  which  was  free  from 
dogma  and  hypocrisy  and  a  feeling  that  her  educa- 
tion was  not  ample.  Kempf  gave  her  a  rather  in- 
definite reply  on  the  subject  of  religion  but  ac- 
corded more  serious  consideration  to  her  feelings  of 
inferiority  about  her  education. 

Her  education  had  been  badly  supervised  and 
her  conception  of  her  fitness  as  a  woman  was  not 
commensurate  with  the  magnificent  affections  of 
a  practical  nature  which  were  natural  to  her.  She 
had  become  more  of  a  woman  in  her  sympathies  and 
insight  than  the  average  social  light.  She  had 
a  keen  insight  into  the  affective  mechanism  of  people 
surrounding  her. 

In  order  to  free  herself  from  her  feeling  of  in- 
feriority she  read,  upon  Kempf's  advice,  biog- 
raphies of  famous  women  and  gradually  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  much  of  her  suffering  had  been 

[157] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


due  to  her  repression  of  her  affections.  She  de- 
termined to  join  the  movement  for  woman's  eman- 
cipation. 

Her  husband  had  to  be  educated  too.  Attentive 
and  kind  to  her,  he  was  still  too  completely  en- 
thralled by  his  mother-fixation  to  co-operate  with 
Kempf  very  faithfully.  He  could  not  restrain  his 
tendency  to  criticize  his  wife  and  to  show  displeas- 
ure over  her  diet,  her  careless  way  of  dressing,  etc. 
Kempf  told  him  explicitly  that  he  should  not  sup- 
press, among  other  things,  her  interest  in  feminism, 
but  frankly  support  it.  He  agreed  to  do  so  but 
was  not  quite  able  to  keep  his  word. 

The  patient,  however,  in  spite  of  all  the  pressure 
which  both  families  tried  again  to  bring  to  bear 
upon  her,  asserted  herself. 

She  met  their  arguments  with  the  statements  that 
she  must  use  her  own  judgment  "because  her  physi- 
cian had  insisted  upon  it,"  and  that  she  did  not  care 
what  they  had  to  say.  She  could  not  please  every- 
body and  no  matter  what  happened  she  knew  her 
physician  respected  her  personal  integrity  and  sin- 
cerity. 

The  way  in  which  she  managed  her  second  preg- 
nancy and  the  rearrangement  of  her  household  were 
very  encouraging.  The  only  distressing  note  was 
a  statement  she  made  that  if  any  hopeless  family 
[158] 


A  Complete  Recovery 


estrangement  should  arise  she  would  kill  herself. 

Therein  lurked  the  possibility  of  a  fateful  re- 
gression to  the  lowest  possible  level,  the  fatal  level, 
for  the  committing  of  suicide  is  a  regression  to  the 
eternal  mother,  an  effort  to  return  to  the  ancient 
state  of  intrauterine  peace,  comfort  and  depend- 
ence. 

Now,  four  years  after  her  discharge  from  the 
hospital,  she  is  in  excellent  mental  condition,  work- 
ing out  most  of  her  plans  to  her  heart's  desire  and 
taking  good  care  of  her  two  children. 

Intelligent,  sympathetic  re-education,  reducing 
her  feeling  of  inferiority;  the  reliance  she  could 
place  in  a  well  known  psychiatrist  understanding 
her  better  than  any  member  of  her  family  and 
whose  opinions  had  naturally  more  weight  than 
that  of  any  one  else  in  her  environment  have  en- 
abled her  to  become  herself  at  last. 

A  perusal  of  this  remarkable  case  furnishes  the 
reader  with  concrete  applications  of  various  state- 
ments contained  in  the  chapters  on  the  Love  Life 
and  the  Sexual  Enlightenment  of  Children. 

The  puritanical  father  and  mother  who  in  their 
fear  of  facts  allowed  their  daughters  to  remain 
in  ignorance  of  the  sexual  truth  until  a  former  in- 
mate of  a  house  of  prostitution  brought  them  the 
most  spurious  and  romantic  form  of  enlightenment 

[159] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


are  familiar  figures.  The  baneful  influence  of  a 
prudish  father  continually  throwing  obscene  sug- 
gestions into  the  minds  of  his  children  by  his  very 
efforts  to  instil  "modesty"  into  them  is  graphically 
illustrated. 

This  case  also  offers  us  a  demonstration  of  the  ef- 
fects which  a  man's  mother-fixation  can  have  upon 
that  man's  sexual  partner,  causing  her  to  experi- 
ence a  sense  of  physical  inferiority  because  to  his 
complex-beset  mind,  the  mother  type  only  can  rep- 
resent feminine  attraction  and  arouse  his  desire. 

The  striking  change  which  the  crisis  brought 
about  in  the  patient's  personality  and  in  her  atti- 
tude to  life,  makes  good  food  for  thought.  It  is 
difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusions  that  AFTER  BEING 
INSANE  and  recovering  she  was  better  fitted  for  life, 
and  had  become  a  more  interesting  human  type 
than  before  the  onset  of  her  neurosis. 

To  one  who  realizes  that  recovery  from  a  severe 
neurosis  means  the  acquisition  of  an  enormous 
amount  of  insight  into,  not  only  one's  own  thinking 
functions  and  motives,  but  into  the  psychology  of 
one's  associates  as  well,  it  will  be  evident  that  many 
persons  who  lived  through  such  a  terrible  experi- 
ence may  have  developed  a  more  robust  mentality 
than  they  ever  had. 

Unfortunately  that  view  is  not  held  by  many  peo- 
[160] 


People  Who  Were  Insane 


pie  and  the  individual  who  was  unfortunate  enough 
to  require  treatment  in  an  institution  for  the  insane 
comes  back  to  his  former  environment  bearing  an 
undefinable  stigma.  People  are  afraid  of  him  and 
expect  him  to  "go  crazy"  again  at  some  time  or 
other.  And  their  fears  are,  if  not  justified,  at 
least  often  realized.  The  insane  man  who  made 
a  recovery  sometimes  becomes  insane  again  because 
he  has  been  discouraged  in  his  fight  for  reality  by 
the  very  same  people  who  once  drove  him  into  in- 
sanity. 

Kempf's  patient  having  it  dinned  constantly  in 
her  ears  by  two  absolutely  dissimilar  groups  of 
people  that  she  was  crazy  finally  followed  the  line 
of  least  resistance  and  yielded  to  their  absurd  pro- 
nouncement. The  pressure  of  such  environmental 
forces  together  with  the  fact  that  the  patient  was 
actually  insane  once  and  may  have  a  few  linger- 
ing doubts  about  his  complete  recovery,  may  suc- 
ceed in  sending  him  back  to  the  institution  from 
which  he  was  discharged. 

As  Kempf  writes,  "The  thoughtless  attitude  of 
the  people  is  to  be  changed,  by  educating  them  to 
have  as  much  confidence  in  those  who  have  recov- 
ered from  mental  diseases  as  they  have  in  those 
who  recover  from  other  diseases,  in  order  to  help 
the  patient  to  be  less  fearful  of  being  distrusted 

[161] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


and  disrespected.  Both  sides  of  this  procedure 
have  essentially  a  therapeutic  value  in  that  they 
are  conducive  to  an  easier  and  more  durable  re- 
covery for  the  patient  as  well  as  exerting  a  human- 
izing influence  on  the  people.  Hence  the  pro- 
cedure should  be  an  important  part  of  the  thera- 
peutic method,  a  permanent,  outstanding  feature 
of  the  hospital  life  of  the  patient  and  the  means  of 
maintaining  social  contact  between  the  hospital  and 
the  community." 

Finally  the  method  employed  by  Kempf  in  re- 
storing his  patient  to  a  normal  condition  exposes 
the  absurdity  of  herding  the  insane  by  the  thou- 
sands in  institutions  where  nature  is  mainly  relied 
upon  to  bring  about  a  cure.  Let  the  average  man, 
Kempf  writes,  imagine  what  distress  he  would  suf- 
fer and  what  changes  of  character  he  would  undergo 
if  he  were  confined  indefinitely  in  a  hospital  ward, 
his  judgment  discredited,  and  forced  to  associate 
constantly  with  twenty  to  fifty  other  worrying,  un- 
happy people,  many  of  whom  had  lost  control  of 
themselves  and  become  sexually  perverse  either 
overtly  or  in  fancy.  The  universal  answer  would 
be  that  the  experience  would  soon  become  unen- 
durable to  the  sane  man  or  woman  and  cause  noth- 
ing less  than  prolonged  misery  and  suffering. 
[162] 


Hospitals  Versus  Asylums 


The  hospital  for  mental  diseases,  he  concludes, 
should  be  a  first  class  vocational  university  for  the 
practical  re-education  and  rehabilitation  of  the 
people  who  have  become  abnormal  and  unable  to 
adapt  themselves  to  their  social  obligations  and 
the  social  laws,  due  to  their  incompatible  cravings 
and  previous  unsuitable  education  and  training. 

Such  a  plan  would  require  for  its  realization  a 
considerable  increase  in  the  number  of  physicians, 
nurses,  attendants,  and  vocational  and  athletic 
trainers.  This  would  at  first  appear  very  expen- 
sive, but,  as  Kempf  remarks,  owing  to  the  great  re- 
duction in  the  duration  of  the  average  patient's  ill- 
ness, and  the  increase  in  recoveries,  the  annual  cost 
would  be  greatly  reduced  after  a  few  years. 

Eighty  per  cent,  of  the  mentally  diseased,  he 
thinks,  could  be  cured  if  properly  treated.  This 
applies,  of  course,  to  cases  in  which  there  is  no  de- 
struction of  nervous  tissues. 

Furthermore,  the  asylum  would  lose  its  depress- 
ing, ominous  stigma  and  many  patients  in  the  in- 
cipient stage  would  be  influenced  to  come  and  seek 
treatment  before  their  condition  had  become 
chronic  or  incurable.  What  with  the  many  who 
would  not  become  insane  owing  to  preventive  meas- 
ures, and  the  many  insane  who  could  be  helped  to 

[163] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


regain  their  mental  balance,  the  population  of  in- 
sane asylums  would  be  greatly  reduced  by  adopt- 
ing Kempf's  suggestions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  complete  report  of  this  interesting  case  will  be 
found  in  the  Psychoanalytic  Review  for  January,  1919, 
under  the  title  "The  Psychoanalytic  Treatment  of  De- 
mentia Praecox"  by  Dr.  Edward  J.  Kempf. 

Dr.  Kempf's  theories  are  discussed  in  the  last  chapter 
of  the  present  book.  His  ideas  on  the  management  of 
hospitals  for  the  insane,  which  are  very  progressive,  have 
been  published  under  the  title  "Important  Needs  of  Hos- 
pitals for  Mental  Disease,"  New  York  Medical  Journal, 
July  5,  1919. 


[164] 


CHAPTER  VI.    THE  NEUROTIC  ASPECTS  OF 
WAR 

Civilization  eliminates  many  of  nature's  waste- 
ful methods  and  reduces  to  a  minimum  the  friction 
between  human  beings.  It  modifies  individual 
habits  and  transforms  them  into  clan  or  herd  habits, 
later  into  national  habits.  It  teaches  individuals 
a  certain  measure  of  solidarity. 

The  herd  bands  together  to  repel  aggressors  of 
a  different  species ;  wolves  hunt  in  packs  and  do  not 
attack  one  another;  flocks  of  migrating  birds  wait 
till  a  tired  member  of  the  flock  is  ready  to  resume 
the  voyage.  The  advantages  of  solidarity,  how- 
ever, are  only  obscurely  realized  by  the  majority 
of  animals  and  when  no  emergency  compels  them 
to  realize  them,  we  see  them  often  murdering  one 
another  to  secure  one  favourite  female  or  a  larger 
allotment  of  the  available  food. 

Man,  likewise,  seldom  adapts  himself  perma- 
nently to  standards  which  are  very  superior  socially 
to  the  purely  individual  standard.  His  ego,  sex 
and  safety  urges  can  be  repressed  for  a  certain 
length  of  time,  mainly  out  of  necessity,  physical  or 

[165] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


social,  but  they  are  constantly  striving  for  direct 
or  indirect  expression,  sometimes  through  chance 
actions,  cruel  or  obscene  wit,  day  and  night  dreams. 

Not  only  does  civilized  community  life  compel 
a  repression  of  the  urges  which  is  contrary  to  primi- 
tive human  nature,  but  the  demands  it  makes  are 
growing  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Such  demands  are 
growing  faster  than  men,  the  world  over,  can  make 
their  urge  repression  really  efficient. 

Thus  a  constantly  increasing  emotional  strain 
is  created  which  manifests  itself  in  abnormal  ways 
among  the  weaker  members  of  the  community. 
The  robust  and  well-fed  generally  manage  to  re- 
main normal  regardless  of  the  physical  and  mental 
risks  they  run.  The  inferior  organisms  either 
break  down  under  the  strain  or  defy  the  customs  of 
the  community  and  pay  the  penalty  or  they  seek  the 
line  of  least  resistance  and  submit  in  appearance. 

The  population  of  the  world,  for  that  reason, 
consists  of  many  more  simulators  than  truly 
adapted  human  beings.  Restrictions  are  burden- 
some to  them  but  they  either  conceal  the  fact  as  a 
matter  of  policy  or  in  many  cases  are  ashamed  of 
their  own  impatience  and  do  not  even  confess  it  to 
themselves. 

In  sudden  crises,  however,  all  the  pent-up  urges 
[166] 


Display  of  Cruelty 


are  likely  to  break  through  with  a  violence  which 
astonishes  us. 

In  times  of  war,  we  cannot  help  expressing  our 
surprise  at  the  amount  of  savagery  and  cruelty  dis- 
played hy  the  victorious  armies,  but  that  surprise 
simply  shows  our  ignorance  of  the  actual  state  of 
things.  It  is  not,  as  Freud  suggests,  that  people  sink 
very  low  in  war  times;  they  never  were  as  high  in 
peace  times  as  we  imagined  them  to  be. 

We  all  spend  one-half  of  our  life  regressing  to 
the  archaic,  individual,  uncivilized  level;  for  as 
soon  as  we  fall  asleep,  we  discard  our  morality, 
our  ethics,  and  all  our  repressions  even  as  we  cast 
off  our  clothes,  and  indulge  in  a  riot  of  egotistical 
and  sexual  gratification  through  our  dreams. 

The  only  thing  which  generally  holds  us  back  in 
our  waking  time  is,  either  the  fear  of  punishment, 
direct  or  indirect,  the  fear  of  jail  or  of  social  ostra- 
cism, or  a  clear  realization  of  the  financial  and  so- 
cial advantages  vouchsafed  by  apparent  conform- 
ism. 

As  soon  as  war  is  declared,  the  terrible  tension 
is  released  and  most  of  our  animal  instincts  find 
gratification;  that  gratification  entails  no  loss  of 
caste,  prestige  or  money;  on  the  contrary.  In 
war,  the  whole  community  regresses  to  the  animal 

[167] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


level  and  punishes  the  individual  who  refuses  to 
regress  with  the  herd. 

Every  animal  is  born  with  a  craving  for  food, 
which  very  soon  evolves  into  a  craving  for  power, 
power  being  the  shortest  road  to  more  plentiful 
and  better  food  secured  with  the  least  possible 
amount  of  exertion. 

Civilized  man  no  longer  starts  out  with  a  club 
to  dispute  dangerous  beasts  of  prey  or  other  hunters 
of  a  different  clan  their  right  to  hunt,  nor  does  he 
send  out  his  slaves  to  run  down  game.  He  has 
covered  the  brutality  of  the  quest  under  civilized 
veneer  and  manages  to  give  partial  satisfaction  to 
his  archaic  instincts  in  ways  which  do  not  inflict 
too  much  suffering  upon  his  environment. 

War  removes  the  inhibitions  introduced  by 
modern  business  methods.  Every  nation  wishes  to 
conquer  some  piece  of  land  for  reasons  which,  at 
times,  can  well  masquerade  as  humanitarian  ones, 
as  for  instance  the  necessity  of  freeing  some  "en- 
slaved" race  which  we  hope  to  dominate,  or  in 
order  to  "open  up"  markets,  or  to  free  men  of 
our  race  who,  in  a  more  or  less  dim  past,  were 
submitted  to  forceful  annexation  by  another  race, 
etc. 

Whatever  the  pretence,  the  result  is  the  same: 
all  the  individuals  of  one  community  are  exhilar- 
[168] 


War  the  Adventure 


ated  by  the  prospect  of  starting  out  to  plunder  the 
neighbour's  land. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  very  few  members  of  the 
herd,  not  one  out  of  ten  thousand,  will  be  bene- 
fited in  any  way  by  the  foray,  and  those  few,  bank- 
ers and  traders,  never  take  part  in  the  expedition, 
but  the  masses  of  the  fighters  enjoy  the  fact  that 
they  are  engaged  in  an  adventurous  undertaking 
of  a  primitive,  archaic  type,  which  in  ordinary 
times  would  be  highly  unethical  but  which  now  is 
authorized,  financed  and  idealized  by  the  com- 
munity. 

The  civilized  nation  has  regressed  to  the  level  of 
the  robber  herd  of  the  caveman  period.  We  may 
point  out  that  in  legends  and  in  the  real  life  of 
backward  communities,  the  successful  robber  is  a 
romantic,  privileged  character,  to  whom  the  usual 
standards  do  not  apply. 

At  such  times,  some  members  of  the  community 
regress  even  lower  than  the  herd  level. 

The  herd  on  the  war  path  is  hunting  for  the  herd. 
No  single  member  of  the  herd  will  profit  by  the 
conquests  achieved,  and  the  sense  of  herd  solidarity 
is  not  abolished.  The  profiteer,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  entirely  devoid  of  that  sense.  While  the  herd 
is  hunting,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  starve  it  if  he 
can  only  corner  the  herd's  food  supply  and  then 

[169] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


sell  it  at  the  price  his  power  can  dictate  and  thus 
gratify  his  appetite. 

Profiteering  is  individualism  gone  mad.  Like 
the  herd's  craving  for  blood  and  spoils,  it  may  as- 
sume a  righteous  mask:  supplies  are  difficult  to  se- 
cure "on  account  of  the  war,"  those  who  protest 
are  branded  as  unpatriotic  for  they  lack  the  "spirit 
of  self-sacrifice,"  etc. 

Lying  and  deceit,  two  neurotic  devices  of  the 
negative  life,  and  universally  tabooed  in  the  in- 
dividual's life,  become  praiseworthy  in  war  times 
and  especially  indulged  in  by  the  men  who  prepare 
wars,  the  diplomats.  Diplomacy's  greatest  ac- 
complishment consists  in  attaining  an  object  with- 
out letting  any  outsider  suspect  it  and  preferably 
convincing  outsiders  that  an  entirely  different  ob- 
ject is  being  sought. 

The  greatest  diplomats  were  those  who  not  only 
had  the  greatest  capacity  for  deceiving  the  rulers 
at  whose  court  they  were  accredited  but  for  cover- 
ing up  their  traces  so  carefully  that  they  actually 
gained  their  confidence. 

In  war  times,  lying  about  the  enemy  is  not  un- 
ethical. It  is,  on  the  contrary,  highly  commend- 
able as  it  sustains  the  morale  of  fighters  and  civil- 
ians alike. 

Exhibitionism  is  another  deeply  ingrained  and 
[170] 


The  Lure  of  the  Uniform 


infantile  craving  of  all  races,  made  up  in  equal 
doses  of  sex  and  ego.  The  males  of  many  species 
parade  around  the  females  at  mating  time,  trying 
to  arouse  their  sexuality  and  at  the  same  time  prob- 
ably frightening  away  other  males. 

War  offers  many  excellent  excuses  for  a  display 
of  exhibitionism. 

The  warrior  is  clothed  in  a  uniform  which  once 
presented  a  dazzling  array  of  colours  and  in  cer- 
tain cases  was  enhanced  by  precious  metals,  and 
which,  drab  as  it  has  become  today,  for  reasons 
of  safety,  is  sufficient  to  place  those  wearing  it  on  a 
higher  plane  than  the  civilian. 

The  wearing  of  a  uniform  places  all  soldiers  in 
one  category  in  which  every  individual  is  supposed 
to  be  healthy  and  vigorous  and  hence  fit  for  pur- 
poses of  reproduction. 

The  females  respond  properly  and  we  see  thou- 
sands of  service  clubs  in  which  young  women,  some 
of  them  imitating  the  males  and  wearing  uniforms, 
foster  the  men's  belief  that  they  are  privileged 
characters;  some  of  the  women  belonging  to  "so- 
ciety" converse  or  dance  with  men  whom  they  would 
absolutely  ignore  if  they  cast  off  the  distinguishing 
regalia  of  the  fighting  male  and  donned  civilian's 
clothes. 

In  war  times,  the  desire  for  promiscuous  inter- 

[171] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


course  which  lurks  in  every  human  being  can  be 
indulged  in  without  calling  forth  undue  criticism. 
The  most  jealous  husbands  are  compelled  to  ap- 
prove of  their  wives'  "war  activities." 

The  war  regression  is  a  boon  to  all  the  weak 
members  of  the  community  who  are  anxious  to 
regress  to  a  childlike  level  but  are  compelled  by 
economic  necessity  to  remain  on  the  adult  level. 
The  useless,  the  shiftless,  who  for  lack  of  intelli- 
gence or  perseverance,  never  were  able  to  accom- 
plish anything  positive,  who  have  been  a  butt  for 
much  scorn  and  contumely,  are  suddenly  enabled 
to  play  a  striking  part  in  their  little  world  by  en- 
listing or  being  drafted. 

Not  only  are  their  failures  forgotten,  but  an 
escape  from  stern  reality  is  vouchsafed  them.  All 
of  life's  responsibilities  are  now  shifted  to  the  state. 
The  state  feeds,  clothes  and  shelters  them  and  as- 
sumes the  charge  of  their  dependents.  Nothing 
that  befalls  the  enlisted  man's  family  can  affect 
him  very  deeply,  for  as  soon  as  he  joins  the  colours 
his  responsibility  ceases. 

As  soon  as  he  dons  a  uniform,  the  useless  and 
shiftless  weakling  becomes  an  object  of  attention 
on  the  part  of  women,  even  as  the  worthier  males. 
That  the  sexual  element  plays  a  greater  part  in  the 
devotion  women  show  to  fighters  than  a  spirit  of 
[172] 


Sexual  License 


self -sacrifice  is  well  proved  by  the  fact  that  while 
social  clubs  had  more  volunteers  at  their  disposal 
than  they  could  possibly  employ,  the  hospitals  of 
New  York  City  during  the  epidemic  of  influenza 
of  1919  were  unable  to  find  nurses.  Although  by 
that  time  the  war  emergency  was  over  one  nurse 
in  ward  Bl  at  Bellevue  Hospital  had  to  take  care 
of  as  many  as  fifty  patients  for  12  hours  at  a  time. 

One  of  the  features  constantly  reported  in  war 
news  are  stories  of  sexual  license  and  violence. 

The  sex  instinct,  submitted  to  a  terrible  repres- 
sion in  peace  times,  breaks  through  when  so  many 
other  inhibitions  are  removed.  In  all  epochs  of 
history  the  fighting  man's  morality  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  special  allowances.  In  the  past,  one  of 
war's  sequels  was  the  seizing  of  the  defeated 
enemy's  women  by  the  victorious  tribe.  Moses 
told  his  men  to  keep  for  themselves  all  the  virgins 
of  the  Midianite  tribe  which  they  had  defeated. 
The  enemy's  wife  or  sister  has  never  been  sacred. 
Training  camps  and  garrison  towns  have  always 
been  known  as  centres  of  promiscuous  sexual  in- 
tercourse. 

Another  one  of  the  infantile  activities  which  is 
carefully  regulated  from  an  early  age  and  whose 
haphazard  gratification  is  severely  repressed  is  the 
anal  and  vesical  activity,  the  passing  of  feces  and 

[173] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


urine.  A  regression  to  such  activities  in  their  in- 
fantile form  is  reported  quite  frequently  in  war 
times.  The  invading  soldiers  often  defile  in  the 
most  nauseating  way  the  quarters  which  they  oc- 
cupy, not  respecting  even  at  times  religious  vessels 
or  other  paraphernalia  of  the  enemy's  cult. 

The  necessities  of  the  national  defence  enable 
any  one  with  a  neurotic  strain  of  cruelty  to  satisfy 
his  craving  even  in  his  immediate  environment, 
without  regard  for  the  law  of  the  herd. 

Thousands  of  people  spy  on  one  another,  listen 
to  conversations  in  public  places  and,  whenever 
hearing  something  suspicious,  have  the  offender  ar- 
raigned, if  not  dragged  in  a  spectacular  way  to  the 
police  station. 

This  is  a  manifestation  of  the  egotistical  nega- 
tivism which,  unable  to  achieve  anything,  lowers 
other  people's  level  through  disparagement  and 
destructive  hostility. 

War  allows  us  to  insult  any  one  we  dislike  by 
calling  him  a  traitor  or  a  seditious  person  and  de- 
nouncing him  to  the  police  authorities.  If  he  is 
higher  than  we  are,  we  "get  even"  with  him,  if  he 
is  our  equal  we  make  him  our  inferior,  if  he  belongs 
to  a  lower  social  rank,  we  can  then  express  our 
scorn  without  appearing  snobbish. 

Atrocities  are  being  committed  in  every  war  by 
[174] 


An  Eye  for  an  Eye 


the  victorious  armies.  Whether  they  assume  the 
form  of  cruel  treatment  of  civilians  or  consist  in 
using  trench  gas,  liquid  flame  or  other  means  of 
torture,  makes  very  little  difference.  Every  one 
pretends  to  experience  a  profound  indignation  on 
reading  about  them,  but  no  one  ever  suggests  any- 
thing but  reprisals,  retaliation. 

In  peace  times,  we  do  not  disembowel  Jack  the 
Ripper  because  he  resorted  to  that  frightful  form 
of  violence,  we  do  not  burn  alive  the  man  who  set 
fire  to  a  house.  In  war  the  path  of  regression  to 
primitive  cruelty  is  wide  open  "for  the  sake  of  ex- 
ample." 

Primitive  savages  wno  wish  something,  represent 
it  dramatically,  sprinkling  the  ground  to  bring  rain 
from  the  clouds,  burning  some  one  in  effigy,  etc. 

In  war  times,  the  population  is  made  to  behold 
at  every  step  lurid  posters  representing  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  foe.  Rabid  statements  are  made 
vociferously  as  to  what  we  shall  do  to  the  enemy, 
how  completely  we  are  going  to  crush  him,  to  hit 
him  so  hard  that  he  shall  never  rise  again.  In 
other  words  the  task  which  confronts  the  nation  is 
constantly  represented  as  being  successfully  per- 
formed and  brought  to  a  glorious  ending. 

There  is  also  in  the  rage  with  which  the  commun- 
ity destroys  the  things  symbolical  of  the  enemy  a 

[175] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


regression  to  the  period  of  infamy  which  Ferenczi 
calls  the  period  of  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of 
thought  and  magic  gestures. 

By  forbidding  the  display  of  certain  flags,  by 
placing  a  ban  on  books  and  publications  printed 
in  the  enemy's  language,  by  interfering  with  mu- 
sical performances  in  which  an  enemy  performer 
is  taking  part  or  at  which  the  works  of  an  enemy 
would  be  given,  certain  neurotics  think  they  can 
destroy  the  enemy  more  completely. 

Whatever  symbolizes  the  enemy  and  makes  him 
present  symbolically  is  done  away  with.  Here  we 
behold  a  process  akin  to  the  withdrawal  from  real- 
ity in  dementia  praecox  and  to  the  ostrich's  habit 
of  burying  his  head  in  the  sand. 

Such  prohibitions  show  a  regression  to  the  belief 
in  magic,  a  decided  evasion  of  reality  and  a  flight 
along  the  line  of  least  resistance. 

Intolerance  is  the  most  marked  characteristic 
phenomenon  of  war  times.  It  also  characterizes 
severe  cases  of  neurosis. 

One  cannot  discuss  with  a  neurotic.  The  psy- 
chiatrist who  tries  to  bring  insight  into  his  patient's 
mind  would  lose  the  battle  at  once  if  he  began  by 
telling  him  that  his  story  is  absurd. 

The  thing  to  do  is  to  let  the  neurotic  tell  his 
[176] 


Patriots  and  Traitors 


story  in  his  own  way,  to  throw  light  gradually  on 
the  spurious  evidence  on  which  he  has  built  it  and 
thus  to  disintegrate  it.  But  the  more  absurd  the 
obsession,  the  harder  the  neurotic  will  fight  to 
have  his  version  accepted.  The  hopelessly  insane 
who  knows  he  is  a  king  or  god  easily  resorts  to 
violence  when  some  one  betrays  scepticism. 

The  neurotic  may  obscurely  feel  that  his  story  is 
wrong  and  cannot  be  defended.  Hence  his  im- 
potence is  easily  enraged  and  he  avoids  all  discus- 
sions in  which  he  could  not  hold  his  own. 

In  war  times.,  rabid  neurotics  who  monopolize 
the  title  of  patriot  do  not  allow  any  one  to  discuss 
the  war  or  any  of  its  problems.  If  they  were  sure 
of  their  ground  they  would  gladly  confute  doubters, 
but  being  thrall  to  their  emotions  they  have  to  fol- 
low the  line  of  least  resistance.  "Only  traitors," 
they  say  quite  finally,  "discuss  the  merits  of  a  war 
after  war  has  been  started." 

Intolerance  is  the  last  refuge  of  the  loser.  Hav- 
ing no  strong  argument  wherewith  to  silence  you, 
he  hits  you  on  the  mouth. 

The  consequences  of  the  wholesale  regression 
which  takes  place  during  war  are  interesting  to  ex- 
amine. 

The  states  engaged  in  war  disregard  all  the  eth- 

[177] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


ical  rules  which  have  established  themselves  as  the 
fundamentals  of  behaviour  in  all  civilized  commun- 
ities. 

They  lie,  they  practise  deceit  at  home  and 
abroad,  they  deprive  people  of  their  freedom  of 
speech,  they  sentence  dissenters  to  incredibly  long 
jail  terms,  etc. 

The  masses  of  the  population  can  only  reach  one 
conclusion:  that  is  that,  while  ethics,  morality  and 
honesty  are  very  fine  in  theory,  they  are  non-ex- 
istent when  tried  by  the  reality  test. 

Ethics,  morality  and  honesty  are  valuable  when 
no  emergency  has  to  be  coped  with.  As  soon  as 
the  great  emergency  of  war  arises,  however,  the 
state  sets  them  aside  as  useless  or  detrimental. 

Hence  ethics,  morality  and  honesty  seem  to  have 
only  a  relative  value,  not  an  absolute  one  and  the 
danger  is  that,  when  the  masses  instilled  with  that 
doctrine  of  relativity  want  something  very  badly, 
they  may  also  act  as  the  state  acts  in  emergencies. 

An  enormous  amount  of  savagery  lingers  in  peo- 
ple's attitudes  following  a  war.  Men  of  a  con- 
servative type  who,  before  a  war,  would  boast  of 
their  human  feelings  and  deprecate  all  forms  of 
violence,  are  heard  suggesting  violence  against  their 
opponents.  "Shoot  them  at  sunrise,"  "Get  the 
rope,"  "Shoot  them  first  and  try  them  next,"  are 
[178] 


Neurotic  Death  Threats 


the  favourite  expressions  of  neurotics  brutalized  by 
the  war  spirit. 

Their  opponents,  their  enemies  are  transformed 
through  mental  juggling  into  enemies  of  the  coun- 
try, and  hence  deserving  death.  This  is  a  typically 
infantile  attitude.  The  child  powerless  against  a 
stronger  boy  throws  in  his  face  a  desperate  "I  wish 
you'd  die."  Here  is  again  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance. Nothing  will  save  us  from  our  opponent 
except  his  death.  We  then  make  that  death  a  pub- 
lic necessity. 

The  politician  who  goes  about  the  country 
preaching  a  summary  execution  for  those  who  dis- 
agree with  him,  is  unknowingly  proclaiming  their 
absolute  superiority  and  his  absolute  incapacity  to 
fight  them  fairly  in  a  civilized  way. 

The  constant  charge  of  intended  violence  brought 
by  certain  men  against  groups  they  intend  to  perse- 
cute is,  generally  speaking,  a  projection  of  their 
own  murderous  cravings  upon  their  intended  vic- 
tims. Suspecting  a  man  of  violence  is  the  sim- 
plest excuse  for  submitting  him  to  violence.  By 
pretending  that  we  saw  a  man  put  his  hand  to  his 
hip  pocket  we  can  always  plead  self-defence  when 
we  do  him  to  death. 

The  description  of  many  raids  made  upon  the 
locals  of  labour  organizations  in  recent  months  re- 

[179] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


veals  that  the  leaders  of  those  raids  were  not  bent 
so  much  on  preventing  or  punishing  violence  as 
on  indulging  without  danger  to  themselves  in  an 
orgy  of  violence. 

Raiders  entering  premises  ostensibly  to  seek 
damaging  evidence  have  been  known  to  smash 
everything  in  the  rooms  from  electric  lamps  to  me- 
chanical pianos  and  typewriting  machines. 

It  will  be  noticed  also  that  all  great  wars  are  fol- 
lowed by  epidemics.  They  are  generally  attri- 
buted to  unsanitary  conditions  induced  by  the  de- 
struction of  hygienic  appliances,  the  presence  of 
dead  bodies,  the  weakening  of  the  population  by 
famine,  etc. 

The  importance  of  all  these  factors  could  not  be 
denied  by  any  rational  scientist.  Another  factor, 
however,  should  be  added  to  the  list.  When  al- 
most all  the  forms  of  approved  regression  made 
available  by  the  war  emergency  have  been  removed, 
when  active  negativism  has  become  impossible, 
passive  negativism  enters  into  play.  The  neu- 
rotic who  could  satisfy  his  ego  through  exhibition- 
ism and  sadism  and  become  by  the  performance  of 
some  simple  standardized  actions  a  centre  of  in- 
terest has  to  find  some  other  means  of  dominating 
neurotically  his  environment. 

This  is  easily  done  by  assuming  unconsciously, 
[180] 


The  Line  of  Least  Effort 


(not  by  any  means  consciously)  the  symptoms  of 
a  simple,  seasonable  disease,  whose  description  is 
to  be  found  in  all  the  papers,  and  in  that  way  re- 
gress to  a  helpless  level,  into  a  privileged  class 
which  enjoys  every  one's  sympathy  and  help,  re- 
ceives medical  care,  is  talked  about,  is  never 
touched  by  suspicion  of  malingering,  owing  to  the 
prevalence  of  the  disturbance  and  is,  for  the  time 
being,  removed  from  and  protected  against  reality 
into  which  it  may  fall  back  gradually. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

FREUD,  S.— "Reflections  on  War  and  Death"  (Moffat, 
Yard)  and  WHITE,  W.  A. — "Thoughts  of  a  Psychiatrist 
on  the  War  and  After"  (Hoeber)  are  two  small  and  most 
readable  books  which  show  one  Austrian  and  one  Ameri- 
can psychiatrist  reaching  practically  the  same  conclu- 
sions from  their  observations  of  the  world  war. 


[181] 


IV.    SLEEP  AND    DREAMS 


CHAPTER  I:     SLEEP,  SLEEPLESSNESS  AND 
NIGHTMARES 

The  most  common  explanation  for  the  fact  that 
we  go  to  sleep  is  that  we  are  tired  and  need  rest. 

A  close  examination  of  the  organism  in  its  sleep- 
ing condition  fails  to  lend  plausibility  to  that 
theory. 

The  heart  continues  to  beat  and  to  send  the  blood 
stream  on  its  course  through  the  body.  The  lungs 
continue  to  gather  in  oxygen,  the  liver  to  accumu- 
late glycogen.  The  stomach  and  bowels  keep  on 
digesting  and  eliminating,  our  beard  keeps  on  grow- 
ing, all  our  glands  keep  on  producing  various  se- 
cretions. Some,  like  our  sweat  glands,  are  in- 
finitely more  active  in  our  sleep  than  in  our  wak- 
ing state.  Our  mind  does  not  rest  by  any  means 
for  we  probably  dream  every  minute  of  every  night. 

Our  vagotonic  activities,  that  is,  the  autonomic 
nervous  activities  which  upbuild  the  body  and  tend 
to  perpetuate  the  race,  are  infinitely  stronger  in 
sleep  than  the  sympathicotonic  activities  which  re- 
strain them. 

Our  sense  organs  are  as  acutely  sensitive  in  sleep 

[185] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


as  in  the  waking  state,  for  the  slightest  stimulus 
brings  about  a  reaction  of  some  sort,  mostly  in  the 
form  of  a  dream. 

Besides  the  fact  that  we  do  not  move  our  arms 
and  legs,  or  at  least  move  them  very  little  while 
asleep,  it  is  rather  difficult  to  mention  any  part  of 
the  body  which  actually  "rests"  in  sleep. 

The  explanation  that  sleep  enables  us  to  elim- 
inate from  the  organism  the  various  fatigue  prod- 
ucts is  not  convincing,  for  inactivity  not  accom- 
panied by  unconsciousness  would  enable  the  blood 
to  carry  off  those  products  as  completely  as  in- 
activity does  when  accompanied  by  unconscious- 
ness. 

The  same  answer  could  be  given  to  those  who 
claim  that  in  sleep  we  store  up  again  the  substances 
(for  instance  sugar)  which  waking  activity  has 
spent  lavishly. 

It  is  not  clear  why  unconsciousness  would  help 
that  process. 

What  is  it,  then,  which  a  conscious  state  does 
not  give  us  and  which  we  only  find  in  unconscious- 
ness? 

Only  by  studying  dreams  will  we  find  a  satisfac- 
tory answer  to  that  question. 

Dreams  secure  gratification  for  thousands  of  ex- 
pressed or  repressed  desires ;  dreams  find  solutions, 
[186] 


Dream  Symbols 


some  of  them  absurd,  some  of  them  acceptable,  to 
problems  which  have  puzzled  us  in  our  waking 
hours;  dreams,  even  though  they  SEEM  frightening, 
painful  or  humiliating,  always  fulfil  some  con- 
scious or  unconscious  wish.  The  process  is  very 
obvious  in  gross  sexual  dreams,  less  obvious  in 
dreams  which  cloak  themselves  with  complicated 
symbolism,  and  not  at  all  obvious  in  nightmares. 

When  dreams  transform  the  dreamer  into  an  ir- 
resistible Don  Juan  or  a  millionaire,  he  is  quite 
willing  to  accept  the  theory  of  wish  fulfilment. 
When  a  young  girl  dreams  that  she  is  pursued  or 
bitten  by  a  dog  she  may  feel  rather  sceptical  as  to 
the  universal  application  of  that  theory. 

Most  of  our  dreams,  however,  are  symbolical, 
that  is,  they  say  what  they  have  to  say  in  a  lan- 
guage which  we  ourselves  do  not  understand,  para- 
doxical as  it  may  seem. 

We  throw  shoes  and  rice  at  newlyweds  without 
actually  understanding  the  meaning  of  that  act. 
Yet  we  are  expressing  in  that  symbolical  way  a 
wish  which  is  quite  appropriate  to  the  occasion, 
and  which  we  would  not  dare  to  express  in  any 
other  way. 

Shoes  are  a  symbol  of  the  female  genitals,  rice 
the  symbol  of  the  male  fecundating  element. 
Shoes  and  rice  have  that  meaning  not  only  in  more 

[187] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


or  less  fantastic  and  in  accurate  dream  books  but 
in  all  the  folklore  of  all  races  (rice  being  in  cer- 
tain cases  replaced  by  wheat  or  other  local  cereal). 

Thus  we  express  symbolically  the  wish  that  the 
newly  married  pair  may  be  prolific,  a  wish  which 
the  delicacy  or  hypocrisy  of  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion would  not  enable  us  to  formulate  too  directly. 

And  curiously  enough  the  symbol  which  uncon- 
sciously we  understand  quite  well,  has  been  in- 
vested by  many  with  a  different  conscious  meaning. 
Many  people  whom  I  asked  for  their  interpreta- 
tion of  that  custom  answered,  "Well,  I  suppose  it 
is  meant  to  say:  'May  the  young  couple  always 
have  enough  to  eat  and  shoes  to  wear.' ' 

The  orange  blossoms  which  crown  brides  were 
originally  an  allusion  to  the  great  fertility  of  the 
orange  tree  which  bears  fruit  twice  a  year.  The 
shyness  which  the  modern  mind  shows  in  the  pres- 
ence of  "brutal"  sexual  facts  has  gradually  placed 
the  stress  on  the  colour  of  those  blossoms  and  has 
caused  them  to  symbolize  maidenly  purity,  which 
after  all  is  only  another  sexual  fact. 

In  both  cases,  the  repression  of  sexual  instincts 
by  the  growing  complexity  of  community  life  has 
managed  to  add  a  conscious  meaning  to  a  ritual 
which  has  an  entirely  different  unconscious  mean- 
ing. 
[188] 


Anxiety  Dreams 


But  it  is  the  unconscious  meaning  which  symbols 
retain  in  our  dream  life,  for  then  the  repression  is 
infinitely  less  powerful. 

Dreams  aim  at  giving  us  absolute  freedom  of 
action  and  expression  but  they  do  not  always  suc- 
ceed completely  in  spite  of  the  symbolical  mask 
which  they  assume  in  so  many  cases. 

Life's  repressions  may  be  so  severe  that  even  in 
sleep  the  pent-up  urges  encounter  obstacles  to  their 
gratification.  The  result  is  anxiety  dreams,  popu- 
larly known  as  nightmares,  which  are  at  times  the 
source  of  a  great  deal  of  suffering,  until  the  subject 
understands  their  symbolic  meaning. 

The  woman  pursued  in  her  dreams  by  snakes, 
or  trampled  upon  by  horses,  or  bitten  by  dogs,  etc., 
is  one  suffering  from  lack  of  sexual  gratification 
and  attaining  that  satisfaction  in  her  sleep  in  sym- 
bolical ways.  A  subject  obsessed  by  suicidal  ideas 
but  who  did  not  wish  to  leave  his  family  unprovided 
for,  owing  to  the  suicide  clause  in  his  insurance 
policy,  would  dream  night  after  night  that  he  was 
put  to  death  for  some  crime,  thus  accomplishing 
his  object  without  causing  his  dependents  any 
financial  loss. 

While  dreams  of  being  trampled  down  by  ani- 
mals or  being  put  to  death  are  not  to  be  considered 
at  first  glance  as  constituting  the  fulfilment  of 

[189] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


wishes,  the  first  anxiety  dream  is  clearly  a  symbolic 
form  of  wish  fulfilment,  the  second,  when  inter- 
preted with  the  help  of  the  subject,  appears  a  simple 
solution  of  a  problem  which  at  one  time  agitated 
the  subject's  mind  and  hence  is  also  a  wish  fulfil- 
ment. 

The  function  of  sleep,  then,  is  to  compensate  us 
for  all  the  things  we  must  forego  in  our  waking 
life,  for  all  the  desires  we  must  repress  in  order 
to  conform  to  civilized  standards.  Sleep  is  a 
means  of  escape  from  reality  and  from  the 
monotony  of  existence. 

The  more  complex  civilization  becomes  the  more 
necessary  sleep  becomes  and  the  more  frequent  are 
mental  disturbances  due  to  lack  of  sleep.  At  the 
same  time,  it  must  be  noticed  that  certain  people 
whose  lives  are  extremely  strenuous  do  not  require 
as  much  sleep  as  others  do  who  lead  a  much  more 
peaceful  existence.  Napoleon  hardly  ever  slept 
more  than  four  hours  before  he  reached  the  Island 
of  Saint  Helena.  He  then  slept  much  longer.  Edi- 
son does  not  require  more  sleep  than  Napoleon. 
Many  other  famous  men  managed  to  live  a  healthy 
life  while  taking  very  little  rest. 

But  those  men  also  led  a  life  in  which  they  ful- 
filled almost  all  their  wishes.  Their  work  was  not 
drudgery.  Napoleon's  life  was  a  continuous 
[190]  ' 


Sleepy  Little  Towns 


romance  of  the  most  exciting  sort.  Edison's  in- 
ventive genius  vouchsafes  his  ego  innumerable 
forms  of  satisfaction. 

The  Napoleon  type  and  the  Edison  type  are  at 
the  opposite  poles,  the  first  being  highly  negative, 
self-centred  and  destructive,  the  other  highly  posi- 
tive, socially  useful  and  constructive,  and  yet  both 
types  lived  their  dreams  in  their  waking  hours. 

The  drudges,  on  the  other  hand,  only  realize 
their  desires  in  their  sleep  and  hence  need  more 
sleep.  Every  one  knows  how  sleepy  small  towns 
and  their  inhabitants  always  appear.  People  in 
country  towns  sleep  more  than  dwellers  in  large 
cities  although  the  latter  lead  a  much  more  active 
life  and  hence  should  require  a  longer  period  of 
rest. 

Large  cities  with  their  varied  life,  their  exciting 
bustle,  their  noise,  their  accidents,  etc.,  make  life, 
even  for  the  very  poor,  the  overworked  and  the 
stupid,  a  more  stimulating  set  of  experiences  than 
the  well  regulated  existence  one  must  lead  in  a 
small,  settled  and  uninteresting  village. 

Monotony  seems  to  be  after  all  the  direct  cause 
of  sleep.  One  falls  asleep  while  witnessing  a 
monotonous  play,  while  listening  to  monotonous 
music  or  a  monotonous  sermon.  While  noises  are 
supposed  to  prevent  us  from  sleeping,  a  very  mo- 

[191] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


notonous  noise  like  the  tic  tac  of  a  metronome  or 
the  rumble  of  a  train,  can  induce  very  profound 
and  "restful"  sleep.  In  fact  a  subject  who  has 
fallen  asleep  while  concentrating  on  the  beat  of  a 
metronome  is  likely  to  wake  up  suddenly  when  the 
instrument  is  stopped.  I  sleep  well  in  Pullman 
cars  but  I  invariably  wake  up  when  the  train  stops 
at  a  station,  although  the  whispered  conversation  of 
other  travellers  entering  the  sleeping  car  and  their 
footsteps  muffled  by  heavy  matting  are  incompar- 
ably less  noisy  than  the  thundering  of  a  speeding 
train. 

Likewise  drunken  stupor  overtakes  the  weak  and 
inactive  sooner  than  the  strong  and  active  who  pro- 
ceed to  satisfy  their  cravings  in  their  waking  state 
and  grow  jovial  or  coarse,  if  not  violent. 

Sensitive,  dissatisfied  people  never  seem  to  have 
enough  sleep  and  escape  reality  in  their  waking 
hours  through  day  dreams  which  are  very  similar 
in  every  respect  to  night  dreams  and  during  which 
the  subject's  anaesthesia  is  almost  as  complete  as 
in  sleep,  the  subject  being  indifferent  to  many 
sounds  or  light  stimuli,  being  as  we  say,  "absent- 
minded,"  in  a  sort  of  hypnoidal  state  which  does 
not  strike  observers  as  sleep  because  his  eyes  re- 
main open. 

If  we  sleep  mostly  at  night  it  is  precisely  because 
[192] 


Animals  Dream 


night,  on  account  of  the  lack  of  colour,  which  makes 
the  world  more  uniform,  and  the  lack  of  light,  which 
makes  motions  slower  and  more  difficult,  creates 
the  very  monotony  which  induces  sleep. 

Many  experiments  have  been  made  on  dogs, 
proving  that  as  soon  as  their  eyes  have  been  closed 
painlessly,  their  ears  plugged  and  their  legs 
wrapped  in  soft  rags,  the  animals  fall  asleep  and 
remain  asleep  until  exterior  stimuli  are  once  more 
allowed  to  strike  their  senses  and  supply  them  with 
the  "entertainment"  which  they  probably  seek  in 
sleep.  For  animals  dream,  as  any  one  who  has 
watched  hunting  dogs  asleep  can  testify. 

That  fatigue  should  enable  us  to  sleep  is  not  an 
argument  in  favour  of  the  rest  theory  but  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  after  over-exercise,  our  preceptions 
are  not  as  keen  as  they  were  and  life  is  perceived 
more  dully  and  appears  more  monotonous.  Hence 
the  escape  from  it  through  dreams. 

The  theory  of  rest  through  unconsciousness  is 
exploded  by  the  fact  that  when  overtired  we  can- 
not sleep.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 

When  the  organism  reaches  the  point  of  exhaus- 
tion, the  phenomenon  of  the  second  wind  takes 
place.  An  excessive  amount  of  glycogen  comes 
out  of  the  liver,  filling  all  the  muscles  with  new 
energy,  much  as  a  motorist  piloting  a  weak  engine 

[193] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


up  a  hill  would  "step  on  the  gas,"  and  adrenin 
creates  a  tension  which  seems  to  make  all  our  sense 
perceptions  infinitely  keener  (hence  the  irritability 
of  the  very  tired  person,  contrasting  strongly  with 
the  apathy  of  the  moderately  fatigued  individual). 

In  over-exertion  the  mind  becomes  unusually 
alert  and  often  obsessed  by  one  apparently  impor- 
tant idea.  Hence  the  lack  of  monotony  and  stimu- 
lation which  otherwise  would  induce  sleep. 

Fatigue,  we  say,  is  conducive  to  sleep,  but  in  cer- 
tain respects,  fatigue  is  sleep.  For  fatigue  in  its 
turn  is  easily  induced  by  very  monotonous  tasks. 
The  limit  of  exhaustion  is  reached  more  slowly  if 
at  all  when  the  occupations  are  varied  and  work  is 
performed  in  a  constantly  changed  environment. 

Fatigue  is  often  produced  without  <any  physical 
or  mental  exertion  by  a  monotonous  stimulus.  We 
hear  very  often  people  complaining  that  some  one's 
droning  voice  "tired  them  out."  Every  one  of  us 
has  had  the  experience  of  feeling  an  uncontrollable 
desire  for  sleep  when  in  the  company  of  some  ex- 
tremely dull  person  whose  personality  and  intelli- 
gence radiate  absolutely  no  stimulation. 

This  view  of  sleep  may  throw  a  little  light  on  the 
nature  and  causes  of  sleeplessness. 

Sleeplessness  may  have  physical  causes.  Over- 
indulgence in  coffee,  tea  or  cocoa  creates  a  state  of 
[194] 


Common  Sense  and  Sleep 


anxiety  which  is  not  favourable  to  sound  sleep  as 
it  makes  one  more  sensitive  to  stimuli,  causes  one 
for  instance  "to  jump"  at  slight  noises  and  other 
unexpected  happenings. 

Lack  of  physical  exercise  leaves  the  body 
stocked  up  with  energy-producing  fuel  which  we 
may  finally  eliminate  by  tossing  about  in  our  bed 
more  or  less  angrily  (anger,  by  the  way,  is  a  good 
fuel-producing  factor  leading  to  more  sleepless- 
ness). 

Drinking  too  much  water  before  retiring  may 
compel  us  to  arise  several  times  to  urinate.  Par- 
taking of  laxative  fruit  or  drugs  may  initiate  ab- 
dominal activity  likely  to  wake  us  up,  even  if  no 
movement  is  induced. 

Overeating  and  hunger  alike  create  great  dis- 
comfort unfavourable  to  peaceful  sleep.  Heat 
and  cold  also  can  keep  one  awake.  People  suffer- 
ing from  cold  feet  should  use  a  bed  warmer;  people 
perspiring  freely  will  perspire  even  more  freely 
at  night  and  hence  should  avoid  piling  up  too 
many  blankets  on  their  beds. 

In  most  households  beds  face  a  window,  which 
enables  the  first  rays  of  light  to  awake  the  sleeper. 
Too  many  husbands  and  wives  share  the  same  bed, 
thereby  disturbing  each  other's  sleep  by  tossing 
about  or  snoring. 

[195] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


All  the  physical  causes  should  be  removed  first 
and  can  easily  be  removed  when  one  is  troubled 
with  sleeplessness. 

Of  the  so-called  mental  causes,  worry  is  the  most 
common  and  the  most  distressing.  It  is  perfectly 
absurd  to  advise  a  patient  not  to  worry.  When 
some  person  dear  to  us  is  in  danger  of  death,  when 
one  is  threatened  with'  a  catastrophe  of  some  kind, 
when  some  terrible  responsibility  has  to  be  borne 
and  some  weighty  problem  involving  one's  future 
or  reputation  has  to  be  solved,  such  advice  should 
be,  and  generally  is,  resented.  Sleeplessness  in 
such  cases  is  unavoidable  but  should  not  be  taken 
tragically,  the  less  so  as  it  is  hardly  ever  unbroken 
by  "cat  naps"  or  spells  of  almost  complete  uncon- 
sciousness. 

People  exaggerate  greatly  their  sleeplessness. 
Experiments  made  at  a  Western  University  when 
several  men  were  kept  forcibly  awake  for  90  hours 
showed  that  on  several  occasions,  when  the  sub- 
jects imagined  themselves  awake,  they  had  been 
actually  dozing  with  their  eyes  open.  Their  in- 
ability to  notice  certain  stimuli  showed  that  for 
varying  periods  of  time  they  had  not  been  awake, 
although  they  remained  in  a  sitting  or  standing 
position.  On  several  occasions  too,  their  answers 
to  questions  showed  that  they  had  been  dreaming. 
[196] 


Anger  the  Sleep  Destroyer 


Old  people,  in  particular,  tell  very  unreliable 
stories  about  their  inability  to  sleep.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  old  people  whose  vagotonic  activities  are 
at  a  very  low  ebb,  need  little  dream-producing 
sleep. 

Repressed  and  ungratified  desires  do  not  tor- 
ture the  old  as  they  do  the  young. 

Resenting  or  fearing  sleeplessness  are  undoubt- 
edly the  most  insidious  ways  of  inducing  or  pro- 
longing it.  As  I  mentioned  before,  anger  creates 
a  nervous  tension  and  causes  the  release  of  energy 
producing  secretions,  and  so  does  fear,  although 
to  a  different  degree. 

The  person  who  works  himself  up  into  a  rage  be- 
cause he  cannot  sleep,  and  he  who  retires  with  his 
mind  full  of  fear  at  the  possibility  of  a  sleepless 
night  are  not  likely  to  "rest"  peacefully. 

An  obsession  is  easily  created:  "I  am  losing 
my  sleep,"  and  it  can  be  used  neurotically  in  an 
unconscious  attempt  at  obtaining  sympathy  and 
shirking  some  of  life's  duties.  After  which,  it 
establishes  itself  as  one  of  the  expedients  of  the 
negative  life. 

Some  subjects  are  unable  to  sleep  on  account  of 
their  fear  of  nightmares.  This  amounts  to  a  stub- 
born unconscious  resistance  against  some  craving 
which  expresses  itself  symbolically  through  an 

[197] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


anxiety  dream.  Some  of  the  symbolic  dreams  I 
mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  will 
help  the  reader  to  understand  what  I  mean.  A  very 
puritanical  woman  might  well  remain  awake  to 
avoid  an  anxiety  dream  satisfying  her  sexual  crav- 
ings in  a  symbolical  and  apparently  painful  way. 

It  is  evident  that  when  no  physical  cause  can  be 
discovered  which  would  induce  sleeplessness,  and 
when  no  definite  worry  is  keeping  the  mind  (and 
the  liver  and  adrenals)  in  a  state  of  activity,  there 
is  some  recurring  dream,  forgotten  night  after  night, 
which  the  sleepless  one  is  trying  to  avoid  be- 
cause it  expresses  some  craving  subjected  to  a 
strong  repression. 

In  both  cases,  analysis  is  the  only  possible  means 
of  dealing  with  the  difficulty.  The  harrowing 
anxiety  dream  must  be  interpreted  and  the  craving 
it  satisfies  abnormally,  made  clear  to  the  sufferer. 

In  the  second  case,  the  unknown  complex  must 
be  unearthed  and  the  unknown  dream  traced 
through  day  dreams  induced  in  the  analyst's  office. 

Insight  into  nightmares  is  easily  acquired  which 
soon  divests  them  of  their  symbolic  mask  and  trans- 
forms them  into  simpler  and  grosser  wish-fulfilment 
dreams  devoid  of  any  anxiety  element.  A  con- 
scious search  for  the  "unknown  nightmare"  starts 
an  unconscious  activity  which  breaks  down  the  re- 
[198] 


Various  Suggestions 


sistance  owing  to  which  it  is  constantly  forgotten; 
after  which  it  can  be  disintegrated  or  translated  into 
its  actual  meaning. 

Thousands  of  recipes  for  curing  sleeplessness 
have  been  offered  to  sufferers,  most  of  them  in- 
efficient when  not  dangerous. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  avoiding  all  the  phys- 
ical causes  of  sleeplessness  which  I  listed  above 
should  be  the  first  step  in  any  common-sense  treat- 
ment of  that  disturbance.  But  that  alone  cannot 
be  relied  upon  to  effect  a  cure  when  some  complex 
is  responsible  for  the  insomnia. 

We  have  all  met  healthy  individuals  who  man- 
age to  sleep  like  logs  in  spite  of  having  committed 
all  the  possible  dietetic  indiscretions  and  of  lead- 
ing the  most  unreasonable  existence.  Those  are 
not  troubled  by  any  conscious  factors. 

Staring  at,  or  listening  to,  a  monotonous  stimulus 
may  help  in  many  cases.  Prayer,  recommended 
by  Dr.  Thomas  Hyslop,  by  William  James  and  by 
Dr.  Richard  C.  Cabot,  can  be  considered  as  such 
a  stimulus;  when  repeated  many  times,  without 
emotion  and  with  the  automatism  which  character- 
izes the  delivery  of  pieces  learnt  early  in  childhood, 
it  naturally  creates  the  monotony  from  which  we 
strive  to  escape  through  sleep. 

Under  no  circumstances  should  narcotics  be 

[199] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


used.  They  do  not  produce  sleep  but  a  form  of 
unconsciousness  akin  to  death.  They  are  merely 
poisons  taken  in  too  slight  a  dose  to  kill  us. 

Sleep  induced  hy  narcotics  may  not  be  accom- 
panied by  any  dreams  and  is  therefore  useless. 
Users  of  narcotics  often  complain  of  terrible  night- 
mares. Such  nightmares  may  not  be  the  gratify- 
ing wish-fulfilment  dreams  which  alone  make  sleep 
valuable  and  refreshing. 

Sleep  should  be  a  display  of  vagotonic  activity 
in  an  obvious  or  symbolic  form.  Narcotics  creat- 
ing a  deep  disturbance  of  the  normal  life  functions, 
probably  occasion  in  the  organism  a  terrific  strug- 
gle accompanied  by  intense  organic  fear  which  can- 
not be  beneficial. 

BIBLIOGRAPH1 

The  most  useful  book  to  consult  on  the  subject  is  A. 
BRUCE 's  "Sleep  and  Sleeplessness"  (Little,  Brown)  which 
epitomises  within  two  hundred  pages  all  the  theories  of 
sleep  from  that  of  W.  H.  Hammond  to  the  more  recent 
observations  of  Marie  de  Manaceine. 

Freud's  theory  of  dreams  must  be  studied  with  great 
care,  as  his  large  book,  "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams," 
(Macmillan)  is  not  by  any  means  easy  to  understand  at 
first  reading.  It  might  be  well  for  beginners  to  read 
first  Freud's  abbreviated  edition  of  it  which  is  now  out 
of  print  but  can  be  found  in  every  library. 

[200] 


CHAPTER  II.     SELF-KNOWLEDGE  THROUGH 
DREAM  STUDY 

Dream  study  enables  us  to  unravel  the  mystery 
of  sleep.  We  sleep  that  we  may  dream  and,  while 
dreaming,  gratify  the  many  cravings  which  in  our 
waking  hours  must  remain  unsatisfied  if  not  se- 
verely repressed.  Dream  study  will  likewise  prove 
helpful  in  acquiring  that  most  elusive  form  of 
knowledge,  knowledge  of  ourselves. 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  know  others.  Our  un- 
conscious imitation  of  their  attitudes  when  we  ob- 
serve them  makes  us  experience  in  an  obscure  way 
the  mental  and  chemical  processes  of  which  those  at- 
titudes are  surface  manifestations. 

Only  in  very  few  cases  are  the  conclusions  we 
draw  from  our  observations  of  others  or  which  we 
derive  from  our  unconscious  imitation  of  them, 
biased  by  friendship  or  hostility.  In  the  majority 
of  cases  we  are  probably  impartial  judges,  as  im- 
partial at  least  as  our  complexes  allow  us  to  be. 

How  difficult  it  is  for  us,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
judge  ourselves. 

We  may  stand  before  a  mirror  and  try  to  ob- 

[201] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


serve  our  own  attitudes,  but  as  soon  as  we  see  our 
reflection,  we  involuntarily  modify  our  pose  and 
facial  expression  and  assume  others  more  in  har- 
mony with  our  idealized  conception  of  ourselves. 
We  make  infinite  allowances  for  our  shortcomings, 
mental  and  physical.  We  refuse  to  see  ourselves 
as  others  would  see  us. 

That  refusal  is  simply  one  of  the  protective  meas- 
ures life  has  forced  upon  us,  one  of  the  repressions 
which  in  certain  cases  create  bad  complexes.  The 
object  and  subject  are  too  close  to  each  other. 

On  many  occasions  we  suspect  that  our  uncon- 
scious may  be  thwarting  our  views  of  others  and 
we  may  make  an  effort  at  being  fair.  But  we  are 
seldom  in  doubt  as  to  our  opinion  of  ourselves. 
And  yet  how  many  times  do  we  surprise  or  grieve 
ourselves  by  behaviour  for  which  we  can  not  ac- 
count satisfactorily. 

Some  unconscious  factor  forces  our  hand  at 
times,  we  lose  control  of  ourselves,  we  begin  some- 
thing and  suddenly  abandon  it,  we  break  our  prom- 
ises and  suffer  remorse  and  refer  to  the  situation 
by  saying:  I  don't  know  what  made  me  do  that. 

Knowledge  of  our  autonomic  tendencies  throws 
light  upon  the  general  direction  of  our  unconscious 
activities,  but  the  information  thus  gathered  is  not 
[202] 


How  to  Remember  Dreams 


sufficient  to  enable  us  to  devise  plans  for  construc- 
tive behaviour. 

While  the  Aschner  test  merely  warns  us  against 
overdetermination  by  "nervous"  factors,  dreams 
will  furnish  us  with  particulars  of  our  unconscious 
cravings  and  reveal  them  to  us  one  after  another. 

The  thing  to  do  then  is  to  collect  our  night 
dreams  and  study  them  carefully,  translating  into 
understandable  stories  the  symbolic  pictures  which 
often  disguise  our  night  thinking. 

But  a  serious  problem  has  to  be  solved  first: 
many  people  forget  their  dreams  completely  and 
boldly  assert  that  they  never  dream.  All  of  us 
dream  all  night  long  at  a  terrific  speed.  Wake  up 
at  any  time  during  the  night  the  most  "dreamless" 
sleeper  and  he  will  awaken  out  of  a  dream.  Wake 
him  up  by  means  of  some  painful  stimulus,  like 
a  pin  prick,  and  he  will  tell  an  extremely  long 
story  built  around  that  pin  prick  in  perhaps  a 
couple  of  seconds. 

How  shall  we  then  remember  some  of  those  num- 
berless dreams? 

We  must  first  of  all  "wish"  to  remember  them. 
Every  wish  influences  our  dreams  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent. Such  a  wish  formulated  by  an  ailing  person 
preoccupied  with  his  health  is  likely  to  be  a  strong 

[203] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


one  and  will  be  more  or  less  completely  gratified 
in  his  sleep. 

This  statement  will  be  met  with  incredulity  by 
many  laymen  who  have  not  made  the  attempt. 
Subject  after  subject,  however,  who  concentrates  on 
that  wish  at  the  time  of  retiring  reports  the  same  ex- 
perience in  almost  the  same  words:  I  had  many 
dreams  that  night  and  during  those  dreams  I  was 
repeating  to  myself:  this  is  something  I  must  re- 
member so  as  to  tell  my  analyst. 

The  first  attempts  are  not  all  successful.  Many 
subjects  simply  become  conscious  of  the  fact  that 
they  dream  but  remember  only  scraps  of  dreams. 

Those  scraps,  however,  are  valuable  and  will 
help  in  many  cases  to  reconstruct  the  missing  parts 
of  the  story. 

It  may  happen  also  that  the  subject  has,  when 
awaking,  a  clear  memory  of  several  of  the  night's 
dreams  but  proceeds  to  forget  them  by  the  time 
his  eyes  are  fully  open  and  he  is  again  conscious 
of  his  surroundings. 

A  simple  expedient  can  be  used  then  which  will 
be  found  very  effective.  Set  the  alarm  clock  an 
hour  ahead  of  the  time  at  which  you  usually 
awaken.  Have  a  pad  and  pencil  ready  near  your 
bed  and  when  the  alarm  rings  begin  to  jot  down 
[204] 


The  Study  of  Discrepancies 


without  arising  your  dreams,  which  will  then  be 
very  fresh  and  graphic. 

Any  one,  concentrating  on  dreams  before  retiring 
and  awaking  himself  suddenly  in  the  early  morn- 
ing by  means  of  an  alarm  clock,  should  within  a 
week  train  himself  to  remember  very  clearly  at 
least  one  of  each  night's  dreams. 

Dreams  must  be  transcribed  at  once.  Our  un- 
conscious is  both  anxious  to  express  itself  and 
afraid  of  being  detected.  By  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  the  dreams  which  were  so  vivid  to  us  on 
awaking  have  either  dissipated  or  been  "edited." 
If  you  write  down  your  dreams  in  the  morning 
and  try  to  write  them  down  again  from  memory 
at  night,  the  discrepancies  between  the  two  versions 
will  prove  amusing  if  not  distressing. 

Those  discrepancies  should  be  the  first  point  on 
which  your  investigation  should  beat.  "I  Was 
walking  in  the  woods  with  a  blonde  woman,"  a 
patient  wrote  in  his  note  book  immediately  on 
awakening.  "I  was  walking  in  the  woods  with 
some  people,"  he  wrote  the  same  night,  when  re- 
writing the  same  dream  in  accordance  with  my  in- 
structions. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  his  unconscious  had 
attempted  to  blur  the  memory  of  a  woman  who 

[205] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


played  in  his  life  a  part  more  important  than  he 
was  willing  to  confess  even  to  himself. 

The  next  step  in  the  study  of  a  dream  is  to  take 
every  word  of  it  and  to  determine  its  associations. 
Close  your  eyes  and  think  of  the  word  or  sentence 
and  let  your  mind  use  it  as  a  starting  point  for  some 
short  "day  dream."  Note  down  whatever  ideas  are 
brought  forth  by  that  word  or  sentence,  without 
exercising  any  critical  censorship  over  the  results. 
The  associations  may  be  silly,  shameful  or  merely 
unpleasant.  Honesty  in  recording  them  will  be, 
not  only  a  scientific  way  of  collecting  material,  but 
a  beginning  in  the  training  to  face  facts  which  every 
normal  or  abnormal  person,  especially  the  latter, 
must  undergo  in  order  to  acquire  insight. 

Read  over  the  list  of  associations  brought  forth 
by  all  the  words  or  ideas  of  the  dream  until  they 
begin  to  tell  you  a  story. 

Do  not,  however,  expect  the  first  dream  or  the 
first  ten  or  twenty  dreams  to  tell  you  all  you  wish 
to  know. 

This  work,  slow  and  tedious,  must  be  kept  up 
day  after  day,  week  after  week,  until  you  are  able 
to  classify  your  dreams  and  the  various  pictures 
which  they  present. 

Certain  dreams  will  reappear  frequently,  certain 
characters  will  take  part  in  every  action  presented 
[206] 


Emotion  in  Dreams 


on  the  dream  stage,  certain  details  of  scenery  will 
recur  night  after  night,  and  so  will  certain  situa- 
tions, emotions,  etc. 

According  to  whether  the  majority  of  dreams 
refer  to  the  past,  the  present  or  the  future  they  may 
reveal  a  regressive,  a  static  or  a  positive  tendency. 
A  neurotic  has  a  tendency  to  regress  to  an  easier, 
more  protected  form  of  life,  symbolized  by  his 
childhood.  When  acquiring  insight  and  improv- 
ing, he  will,  in  all  likelihood,  formulate  solutions 
for  the  problems  of  the  present  day  in  terms  of 
the  present  day.  After  recovering  he  will,  in  his 
dreams  as  in  his  waking  hours,  make  plans  for  the 
future. 

It  will  be  found  that  the  "purely  obvious"  dreams 
are  very  scarce  and  that  even  those  lend  them- 
selves to  a  symbolic  interpretation. 

The  emotional  nature  of  a  dream  is  not  a  safe 
guide  as  to  its  actual  importance.  A  woman 
patient  dreamt  that  she  was  seated  in  the  balcony 
of  an  Episcopal  church.  A  man  she  loved  was 
seated  with  his  wife  in  one  of  the  pews  and  looked 
bored. 

The  woman  was  a  Christian,  the  man  a  Jew 
and  she  was  extremely  jealous  of  his  attentions 
to  his  wife.  The  egotistical  desire  for  domination 
was  strong  in  her. 

[207] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  dream,  apparently  indifferent  and  unemo- 
tional, gratified  all  her  cravings  in  the  following 
way: 

She  was  seated  in  the  balcony  above  her  lover 
and  his  tvife. 

They  had  come  to  attend  the  services  in  her 
church;  that  is,  they  had  adopted  her  point  of  view. 

He  looked  bored,  hence  was  not  enjoying  his 
wife's  company. 

The  character  of  the  building  precluded  between 
man  and  wife  any  of  the  intimacies  to  which  my 
patient  objected  so  strongly. 

Even  as  the  patient  remained  unmoved  through 
the  dream  owing  to  her  inability  to  understand  its 
meaning  or  her  unconscious  resistance  to  accepting 
its  meaning,  others  will  be  extremely  agitated  by 
emotion  connected  with  a  dream  whose  horror  is 
not  real  but  only  symbolical. 

Nightmares,  as  I  stated  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
often  melodramatize  very  simple  actions  the  desire 
for  which  we  have  so  repressed  that  they  only  break 
through  the  repression  after  an  intense  struggle. 
The  struggle  translates  itself  into  a  feeling  of  hor- 
ror which  is  in  no  way  justified  or  reasonable. 

It  may  be  stated  that  no  nightmare  has  a  purely 
physical  cause,  such  as  overeating,  bodily  discom- 
fort, etc.  Thousands  of  people  sleep  peacefully 
[208] 


Useful  Nightmares 


after  a  heavy  dinner  or  in  spite  of  great  suffer- 
ing. 

There  are  many  convenience  nightmares  which 
endeavour  to  interpret  physical  stimuli  in  a  plaus- 
ible way  so  that  the  sleeper  will  not  awake.  They 
spin  a  story  about  the  pain  or  discomfort  which 
may  be  felt  and  explain  it  away,  so  to  speak. 
Others  seem  to  use  the  actual  pain  or  discomfort 
as  a  basis  for  a  horrible  presentation  which  tortures 
the  sleeper  and  often  wakes  him  up. 

Certain  nightmares  have  the  value  of  a  warning, 
for  instance  in  cases  of  incipient  disease  which  has 
escaped  observation.  Heart,  stomach  or  lung  dis- 
turbances may  be  revealed  by  dreams  in  which 
those  organs  play  a  prominent  part.  Silberer 
dreamt  several  times  that  a  black  cat  was  clawing 
his  throat.  Soon  after,  examination  of  his  throat, 
made  necessary  by  a  severe  cold,  brought  to  view  a 
small  tumour  which  necessitated  a  surgical  inter- 
vention. 

But  even  in  such  cases,  the  choice  of  dramatic 
means  employed  by  the  unconscious  to  visualize 
the  cravings  depends,  not  on  the  nature  of  the 
physical  stimulus,  but  on  the  nature  of  the  cravings 
and  complexes  seeking  an  outlet. 

In  other  words,  no  nightmare  should  be  dis- 
missed as  unimportant  for  it  always  has  a  deep 

[209] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


meaning,  sometimes  a  twofold  one.  It  reveals  a 
fierce  struggle  for  freedom  of  something  that  should 
be  set  free  if  possible  and  in  this  respect  alone  is 
worthy  of  serious  consideration.  While  visualiz- 
ing itself,  that  struggle  may  take  advantage  of  some 
physical  condition  which  in  certain  cases  is  un- 
known to  the  sufferer  and  this,  too,  has  to  be  at- 
tended to  without  delay. 

Whenever  an  organ  plays  a  constant  part  in  night- 
mares, it  should  be  investigated  by  a  physician  as 
it  may  constitute  in  the  organism  a  point  of  least 
resistance. 

In  certain  cases  thorough  examination  may  be 
valuable  in  proving  to  the  subject  that  certain  fears 
of  his  are  ungrounded.  A  subject  bothered  by 
many  dreams  of  impotence  was  examined  by  a 
specialist  and  pronounced  absolutely  normal  sexu- 
ally. 

His  dreams  of  impotence  which  had  always  been 
connected  with  great  anxiety  were  soon  after  re- 
placed by  dreams  of  normal  sexual  gratification. 

Careful  study  of  a  nightmare  always  causes  it 
to  disappear  or  to  lose  its  painful  effect.  A  night- 
mare, as  I  explained  in  the  preceding  chapter,  is 
simply  a  symbolic  expression  of  a  wish  subjected 
to  a  strong  repression.  When  we  face  reality  and 
confess  to  ourselves  certain  cravings  whose  exist- 
[210] 


Small  Boys  in  Dreams 


ence  we  have  been  trying  to  deny  they  no  longer 
assume  a  symbolic  mask  in  our  dreams. 

The  young  woman  attacked  in  dreams  by  various 
animals  and  who  forces  herself  to  realize  that  she 
is  tortured  by  sexual  desires,  will  in  all  likelihood 
dream  that  her  desires  are  gratified  in  a  normal 
way.  The  beasts  may  reappear  but  her  insight  will 
remain  even  in  her  sleep  and  she  will  not  experience 
any  fear  for  she  will  know  that  "it  is  only  a  dream." 

A  subject  of  mine  anxious  to  become  a  public 
speaker  but  hampered  by  various  circumstances  in 
the  realization  of  his  wishes,  dreamt  night  after 
night  that  he  stood  on  the  platform  and  tried  to 
speak  but  was  interrupted  by  small  boys  creating 
a  disturbance  and,  at  times,  drowning  his  voice 
with  their  shouts. 

Analysis  of  that  nightmare  proved  that  his  perse- 
cutors were  conjured  up  by  his  unconscious  in  an 
egotistical  effort  to  explain  away  certain  deficien- 
cies. Small  boys  appeared  again  in  the  subject's 
dreams,  but  they  were  no  longer  hostile  factors  and 
after  a  while  they  disappeared  entirely. 

Nightmares  may  be  the  precursors  of  a  neurosis. 
Unconscious  habits  of  thought  revealed  by  dreams 
easily  come  to  dominate  our  waking  thought.  A 
benign  neurosis  is  after  all  a  dream  (wish-fulfil- 
ment) from  which  we  are  trying  to  awaken  our- 

[211] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


selves  and  a  pernicious  neurosis  is  a  dream  from 
which  we  do  not  wish  to  free  ourselves. 

Insight  into  one's  mental  workings  causes  them 
without  any  exception  to  become  more  normal. 

When  we  are  fully  aware  of  the  childish,  regres- 
sive character  of  some  of  our  dreams,  they  begin 
to  change  and  to  acquire  a  more  positive  tenor.  A 
change  for  the  better  as  well  as  a  change  for  the 
worse  always  appears  in  the  unconscious  before  it  is 
observable  in  our  conscious  states.  Even  as  a 
nightmare  may  warn  the  observer  of  an  oncoming 
neurotic  attack,  a  positive  dream  of  peaceful  accom- 
plishment generally  heralds  a  return  to  normality. 

The  results  of  dream  study  have  many  applica- 
tions to  our  conscious  waking  life. 

Many  family  conflicts  are  due  to  perfectly  un- 
conscious father  or  mother  fixations.  A  neurotic- 
ally inclined  boy,  overattached  to  his  mother,  may 
unconsciously  hate  his  father  and  unconsciously 
direct  all  his  energies  toward  defeating  all  of  his 
father's  plans.  A  neurotically  inclined  girl,  over- 
attached  to  her  father,  may  also  hate  her  mother 
unconsciously  and  conduct  unconsciously  a  constant 
campaign  of  disparagement  against  her  mother. 

Dreams  will  reveal  that  situation  very  soon. 
The  subject,  victim  of  a  fixation,  will  often  dream 
of  the  favourite  parent  who  appears  in  complicated 
[212] 


How  We  Think 


situations,  especially  in  nightmares,  to  solve  all 
difficulties.  The  hated  parent  will  either  never 
appear  or  be  placed  in  a  situation  of  inferiority. 
One  subject  with  a  father  fixation  saw  her  mother 
in  a  dream  as  a  drunken  beggar.  One  man  with  a 
mother  fixation  saw  his  father  driving  his  automo- 
bile from  a  back  seat  while  he  sat  in  the  front  seat 
and  gave  his  father  directions. 

Warned  by  their  dreams  of  such  absurd  situa- 
tions of  which  they  are  not  conscious,  students  of 
dreams  can  revise  their  attitudes  to  members  of 
the  family  circle.  Knowing  that  certain  complexes 
of  a  childish  character  are  prejudicing  them  against 
some  one  they  can  effect  a  readjustment  in  their  re- 
lation to  that  person. 

Dreams  not  only  tell  us  what  we  unconsciously 
think  but  how  we  think.  The  more  normal  and 
independent  we  are,  the  more  obvious  our  forms 
of  wish-fulfilment  are  likely  to  be.  Complicated, 
symbolic  dreams  should  therefore  be  characteristic 
of  repressed,  pent  up  personalities. 

The  man  with  a  mother  fixation  who  simply  relies 
upon  his  mother  in  dream  emergencies  is  undoubt- 
edly of  a  less  assertive  and  less  carnal  type  than 
the  one  who  has  the  typical  Oedipus  dream  of  incest 
with  his  mother.  The  man  who  either  kills  his 
father  or  attends  his  father's  funeral  in  a  dream 

[213] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


is  very  different  in  his  make  up  from  the  man  who 
places  him  in  the  back  seat  of  an  automobile  and 
orders  him  about. 

Also  a  knowledge,  however  superficial,  of  the 
most  common  dream  symbols  may  prevent  us  from 
worrying  about  certain  dreams  of  a  primitive  and 
childish  type,  such  as  the  Oedipus  dreams. 

The  man  who  commits  incest  or  kills  his  father 
in  dream  is  not  by  any  means  abnormal  or  perverse 
and  should  not  consider  himself  as  such.  He  is 
simply  expressing  in  a  very  crude  way  his  affection 
for  one  parent  and  his  indifference  to  the  other. 

The  young  mother  who  dreams  of  the  death  of 
her  children  may  be  simply  hankering  for  a  little 
more  freedom  from  household  cares  and  express- 
ing it  in  the  archaic  fashion  which  our  unconscious 
often  affects. 

Dream  murderers,  however,  can  save  themselves 
from  further  dream  guilt  by  acquiring  insight  into 
the  meaning  of  their  sleeping  fancies. 

Our  unconscious  dominates  our  thinking  by  our 
leave  only.  When  we  set  to  work  to  watch  our  un- 
conscious it  is  soon  shorn  of  its  harmful  power  and 
can  become  a  great  power  for  constructive  work. 

For  almost  every  one  of  the  cravings  revealed 
by  dreams  there  is  some  form  of  positive  satisfac- 
tion. When  we  seek  that  satisfaction  normally 
[214] 


Our  Responsibility 


our  dream  work  no  longer  gives  it  to  us  in  an 
abnormal  form. 

Nietzsche  spoke  truly  when  he  said  that  we  must 
not  seek  to  dodge  the  responsibility  for  our  dreams, 
for  nothing,  he  adds,  is  more  completely  the  work 
of  our  "mind." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  small  book  by  I.  Coriat,  "The  Meaning  of  Dreams" 
(Little,  Brown),  will  prove  of  great  assistance  to  begin- 
ners attempting  to  analyse  their  own  dreams.  A  list  of 
the  most  important  symbols  can  be  found  in  the  chapter 
on  "Symbols"  of  my  book  on  "Psychoanalysis,  its  His- 
tory, Theory  and  Practice." 

See  also  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe's  "The  Role  of  Animals 
in  the  Unconscious,"  Psychoanalytic  Review,  No.  3,  1917. 

A  monograph  by  K.  Abraham,  "Dreams  and  Myths," 
published  by  the  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co., 
will  reveal  to  the  reader  the  rather  puzzling  relations 
which  have  been  discovered  between  myths  and  dream 
formations. 


[215] 


V.    PROBLEMS  OF  SEX 


CHAPTER  I:  THE  LOVE  LIFE 

It  is  not  love  in  the  sense  of  an  affectionate  rela- 
tionship but  in  the  sense  of  a  physical  attraction  and 
stimulation  which  shall  be  discussed  in  this  chapter. 
Affection  is  a  very  elastic  term,  in  no  way  dependent 
upon  sexuality.  It  may  exist  between  master  and 
dog;  we  may  become  attached  to  an  old  house,  a 
piece  of  furniture  or  a  suit  of  clothes,  out  of  habit; 
for  congenial  people,  we  may  experience,  regard- 
less of  their  age  or  sex,  a  profound  feeling  in  which 
interest,  respect  and  confidence  may  blend. 

Very  different  is  the  attraction  which  a  human 
being  may  feel  for,  or  exert  upon,  another  human 
being  of  the  opposite  sex.  I  might  suggest  the 
word  erotropism  to  designate  that  relation,  a  word 
coined  on  the  model  of  heliotropism,  the  force 
which  causes  certain  animals  and  plants  to  turn 
irresistibly  toward  the  sun. 

What  causes  a  male  or  a  female  to  go  forth 
and  seek  a  certain  type  with  which  to  mate,  a  type 
which  to  others  might  perhaps  appear  unattractive, 
and  to  disregard  entirely  many  other  individuals 

[219] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


who,  to  a  third  person,  might  seem  infinitely  more 
desirable? 

Many  sentimental  explanations  have  been 
ventured  by  poets  and  psychologists,  but  they  are, 
at  best,  expressions  of  personal  feelings  of  the  most 
deceptive  sort. 

Nietzsche,  who  has  written  an  enormous  amount 
of  nonsense  on  the  subject  of  women  but  who,  in 
many  respects,  came  "intuitively"  to  the  same  con- 
clusions as  the  various  analysts,  wrote  in  1878, 
long  before  Freud  began  his  investigations,  this 
Freudian  statement: 

"Every  one  bears  within  himself  an  image  of 
woman,  inherited  from  his  mother;  it  determines 
his  attitude  toward  women,  whether  to  honour  them, 
to  despise  them  or  to  remain  indifferent  to  them." 

The  study  of  the  love  life  of  neurotics  has  en- 
abled psychoanalysts  to  give  a  positive  answer  often 
formulated  in  a  na'ive  way:  What  can  she  see  in 
him,  what  can  he  see  in  her? 

The  neurotic  only  accentuates  certain  general 
human  traits  and  tendencies  and  he  makes  them, 
thereby,  easier  to  observe.  It  is  an  axiom  of 
psychoanalysis  that  normal  people  are  labouring 
under  the  same  unconscious  burdens  which  crush 
neurotics.  Most  of  us,  however,  bear  the  burden 
without  a  visible  strain;  most  of  us,  in  other  words, 
[220] 


The  Choice  of  a  Mate 


remain  healthy  "mentally"  as  most  of  us,  in  spite 
of  our  indiscretion  in  matters  of  diet,  of  working 
and  housing  conditions,  manage  to  retain  our 
"physical"  health. 

The  neurosis  simply  acts  as  a  magnifying  glass. 

In  the  male  neurotic,  the  choice  of  a  mate  is 
absolutely  conditioned  by  the  mother-image,  in  the 
female  neurotic  by  the  father-image.  The  neurotic 
who  is  absolutely  unconscious  of  his  mother  fixation, 
is  likely  to  develop  very  little  interest  in  any  woman, 
until  perhaps  his  mother  dies,  when  he  is  likely 
to  marry  a  woman  resembling  in  many  respects 
his  mother  as  she  was  when  he  acquired  his  fixa- 
tion, that  is  between  his  fifth  and  his  fifteenth 
years. 

If  the  male  neurotic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  partly 
conscious  of  his  fixation,  he  may  in  extreme  cases 
avoid  all  women,  whom  he  unconsciously  identifies 
with  his  mother,  or  in  less  serious  cases,  seek  a 
woman  who  in  every  possible  respect  is  different 
from  the  mother-image. 

The  same  applies  to  female  neurotics  affected 
by  a  father  fixation. 

The  resemblance  between  the  love-object  and  the 
parent-image  is  at  times  complete  in  every  respect. 
It  may  bear  upon  one  or  several  physical  or  mental 
characteristics  or  emphasize  certain  complicated 

[221] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


situations.  An  old  maid  with  a  father  fixation  said 
to  me  once.  "I  have  never  married  because  I  have 
never  fallen  in  love  with  any  man  who  was  not 
married."  Her  love-object  had  to  have  a  wife,  like 
her  father. 

In  certain  cases  the  fixation  bears  rather  on  atti- 
tudes than  on  physical  traits,  for  it  has  been 
observed  that  the  child  of  a  neurotic  is  likely  to 
seek  as  his  or  her  mate  a  neurotic  in  preference  to 
a  normal  person. 

Experimentation  with  animals  has  confirmed  the 
great  importance  of  the  mother  image  in  the  selec- 
tion of  a  mate. 

Passenger  pigeons  have  never  been  known  to 
mate  normally  with  ring  doves.  But  let  a  ring 
dove  hatch  the  eggs  of  a  passenger  pigeon  and  the 
young  male  passenger  pigeons  thus  brought  to  life 
will  readily  mate  with  ring  doves  who  represent  the 
mother  image;  not  only  that,  but  they  will  refuse 
to  mate  with  female  passenger  pigeons  to  which 
their  "heredity"  or  their  "instinct"  should  draw 
them,  but  which  are  too  unlike  the  mother  image. 

It  is  probable  that  all  human  beings,  like  all 
animals  brought  up  under  normal  conditions,  are 
guided  in  their  choice  of  a  mate  by  the  father  or 
mother  image  which  has  obsessed  their  conscious- 
ness in  childhood. 
[222] 


Love  at  First  Sight 


And  this  is  probably  a  part  of  the  great  secret 
of  the  permanency  of  the  species. 

This  observation  enables  us  to  understand  the 
statement  often  made  by  laymen  that  propinquity 
is  the  best  preparation  for  love.  People  who  asso- 
ciate constantly  and  who  are  not,  like  brothers  and 
sisters,  separated  by  the  incest  taboo,  may  gradually 
discover  in  each  other  a  likeness  to  the  parent  image 
which  may  be  too  faint  to  be  noticed  at  first  glance. 
This  constitutes  a  rather  good  basis  for  a  quiet  form 
of  married  relationship,  for  the  mere  fact  that  the 
mates  have  shared  the  same  environment  predis- 
poses them  also  to  a  more  congenial  relationship. 

Love  at  first  sight,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  result 
of  a  sudden  and  striking  discovery  of  the  parent 
type  by  one  of  the  mates  or  both.  This  leads  easily 
to  uncontrollable  outbursts  of  desire  and  passion 
but  more  rarely  to  a  peaceful  life  in  common. 

The  parent  type  may  be  found  in  a  person  who 
socially,  intellectually  and  morally  is  not  adapted 
to  a  certain  ideal  of  family  and  community  life. 
Nature,  however,  only  considers  the  race  and  makes 
no  preparations  for  intellectual  achievements,  be- 
sides striving  to  produce  the  best  possible  organisms 
and  nervous  systems. 

The  failure  of  many  unions  due  to  such  outbursts 
is  not  an  argument  against  their  biological  value. 

[223] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Marriage  being,  not  an  ideal  state,  but  a  com- 
promise between  what  the  human,  animal  would  like 
to  do  and  what  it  can  actually  do  at  the  present 
time,  in  a  given  state  of  civilization  and  culture,  has 
to  take  into  account  the  reactions  of  the  environment 
to  any  phenomenon  taking  place  in  that  environ- 
ment. 

Family  and  community  peace  are  better  served 
by  a  union  in  which  the  intellectual  agreement  will 
be  perfect  than  by  one  in  which  the  physical  adap- 
tation leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  Our  associates 
do  not  share  our  sexual  life,  but  they  expect  to 
share  our  social  activities,  and  hence  make  more 
demands  as  far  as  these  are  concerned. 

It  can  be  easily  understood  why  unions  in  which 
one  of  the  mates  is  a  neurotic  are  not  likely  to  prove 
very  successful.  The  normal  man  is  "guided"  by 
the  mother  image  in  his  search  for  a  mate,  and  he 
realizes  that  marriage  is  a  compromise.  The 
neurotic  is  absolutely  "determined"  in  his  selection 
by  an  obsessional  image  and  the  neurotic  tempera- 
ment is  essentially  averse  to  compromises. 

The  neurotic  who  has  married  a  woman  solely 
because  she  corresponded  to  the  mother  image,  is 
likely  to  annoy  her  whenever  she  deviates  in  her 
speech  or  conduct  from  her  prototype. 

"Mother  would  do  this  thing  differently," 
[224] 


Neurotic  Jealousy 


"You  should  see  the  way  mother  would  manage 
this,"  etc.,  and  many  other  nagging  phrases  make 
up  the  woof  of  the  neurotic's  conversation  with  his 
wife. 

The  wife  who  has  been  selected  on  account  of 
her  dissimilarity  to  the  neurotic's  mother  is  per- 
haps in  a  worse  plight  yet.  She  will  be  daily 
taunted  for  being  so  different  from  her  husband's 
mother  and  we  have  seen  how  this  sort  of  treatment 
accorded  to  an  unfortunate  young  woman  was  one 
of  the  contributing  factors  of  her  severe  mental 
upset. 

The  desire  to  dominate  one's  life  partner,  a 
typically  neurotic  and  negative  trait,  is  found  to 
a  certain  extent  in  every  normal  human  being. 
Ardent  love  is  seldom  observed  unaccompanied  by 
an  effort  to  encroach  upon  the  freedom  and  per- 
sonality of  the  love  object. 

Jealousy  is  one  of  the  most  common  manifesta- 
tions of  the  will-to-power  in  the  love  life.  In  the 
normal  man,  jealousy  is  an  angry  fear  of  losing 
something  which  to  the  human  organism  is  the 
strongest  stimulus  known.  The  stronger  and  the 
more  pleasurable  the  stimulus  was  the  more  violent 
jealousy  may  be. 

In  the  neurotic  type,  jealousy  contains  more 
anger  than  fear.  The  neurotic  burdened  with  a 

[225] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


feeling  of  inferiority  resents  the  fact  that  one 
human  being,  heretofore  subjected  to  his  will,  is 
freeing  himself  from  that  bondage  and  subjecting 
himself  to  some  one  else's  will.  Careful  analysis 
of  the  neurotic's  jealousy  shows  that  the  painful 
element  in  that  emotion  is  not  so  much  sex  as  ego. 
The  visualization  of  the  love  object  in  some  one 
else's  embrace  which,  to  the  normal  individual  is 
the  most  torturing  thought,  is  in  the  neurotic's  mind 
secondary  to  the  thought  of  the  power  which  some 
one  else  will  yield  upon  the  love  object. 

In  fact  several  forms  of  pernicious  neuroses  are 
characterized  at  their  onset  by  attacks  of  absolutely 
unjustified  jealousy,  whose  absurd  or  exaggerated 
form  causes  the  patient  to  inquire  into  his  own 
sanity.  A  patient  treated  by  a  well  known  New 
York  psychiatrist  imagined  that  his  wife  was  deceiv- 
ing him  with  a  man  who  entered  the  house  through 
a  door  which  he  knew  never  existed  and  which  was 
suddenly  opened  in  a  wall  which  he  knew  to  be 
absolutely  solid. 

Apart  from  the  sexual  gratification  vouchsafed 
by  love,  lovers  derive  many  non-sexual  forms  of 
comfort  from  their  relationship. 

Some  of  those  verge  slightly  upon  a  regression 
to  a  primitive  level.  Ardent  courtship  admitting 
no  third  party  is  a  sort  of  introversion  and  with- 
[226] 


Baby  Talk 

drawal  from  the  world,  physically  and  sentimen- 
tally, into  privacy  and  romance. 

The  introversion  is  quite  marked  in  the  conver- 
sations of  lovers  who  derive  an  immense  uncon- 
scious satisfaction  from  the  fact  that  they  them- 
selves are  almost  the  exclusive  topic  of  conversa- 
tion. They  never  tire  of  telling  each  other  what 
they  think  of  each  other  and  of  themselves  and  such 
statements  encounter  little  if  any  opposition. 

The  regression  appears  also  in  the  holding  of 
hands,  a  childlike  gesture  symbolizing  a  craving 
for  reassurance  and  safety  in  the  parent's  keep, 
and  in  the  baby  talk  which  is  not  infrequent  among 
lovers. 

Infantile  caresses  and  baby  talk  are  quite  sym- 
bolical of  a  resumption  of  life  with  the  mother  or 
father  represented  by  their  image  in  our  love  mate, 
of  our  searching  for  almost  the  same  comfort  we 
derived  as  infants  and  children  from  our  parents. 

That  apparent  regression,  however,  is  neither 
neurotic  nor  negative.  The  constant  search  for 
precedents  to  every  action  is  a  negative  trait  and  a 
factor  of  stagnation.  Constant  disregard  of  prec- 
edents, on  the  other  hand,  would  be  destructive 
and  in  the  field  of  science  a  cause  for  complete  and 
hopeless  regression. 

Love,  being  the  origin  and  source  of  life  and  the 

[227] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


moulder  of  the  species,  has  to  be  conservative  if 
the  species  is  to  retain  the  characters  it  has  acquired 
in  the  slow  course  of  evolution. 

Another  form  of  pleasure  which  lovers  derive 
from  each  other's  company  may  be  understood  when 
we  recall  the  experiments  made  on  fishes.  If  the 
environment  of  a  living  being  can  exert  on  that 
living  being  such  a  thoroughgoing  modification  that 
colours  or  objects  seen  by  the  eye  can  be  repro- 
duced on  the  surface  of  the  body,  the  sight  of  a 
loved  environment  is  likely  to  produce  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  lover. 

And  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  discovery 
relative  to  the  influence  of  vision  may  be  supple- 
mented some  day  by  other  observations  on  the  influ- 
ence of  our  innumerable  sense  organs,  of  which 
new  ones  are  constantly  being  catalogued. 

Herein  we  may  find  the  explanation  of  a  fact  often 
mentioned  by  laymen,  that  a  man  and  a  woman, 
after  years  of  constant  association,  may  grow  to 
look  alike;  if  a  fish  looking  at  a  pattern  on  the 
sides  or  bottom  of  its  aquarium  can,  after  a  lapse 
of  time,  reproduce  its  environment,  look  like  that 
environment,  what  difficulty  is  there  in  grasping 
the  reason  why  life  mates,  after  looking  at  each 
other  for  years,  reproduce  each  other's  appearance 
and  look  alike?  . 
[228] 


Love  and  Digestion 


Scientific  literature  and  fiction  alike  have  empha- 
sized the  healthy  and  buoyant  look  of  the  happy 
lover;  fiction  in  particular  has  never  tired  of  depict- 
ing sympathetically  the  opposite  type,  the  disap- 
pointed lover,  pale,  feverish,  depressed,  bereft  of 
his  appetite  and  of  all  ambition. 

Those  lists  of  symptoms  are  confirmed  by  a 
glance,  even  superficial,  at  a  map  of  the  autonomic 
nervous  system. 

Happiness  in  love  means  the  perfect  functioning 
of  the  cranial  and  sacral  divisions  of  the  auto- 
nomic system,  which  upbuild  the  individual  and 
the  race,  assure  a  good  digestion,  regular  metabol- 
ism, calm  and  powerful  heart  beats,  the  normal 
elimination  of  waste  matter. 

Unhappiness  in  love  or  sorrow  due  to  the  loss 
of  the  love  object  means  a  stoppage  or  reversion  of 
the  gastric  and  intestinal  peristalsis,  palpitations, 
constipation,  etc. 

Study  of  the  autonomic  system  reveals  how 
closely  ego,  sex  and  nutrition  activities  are  related 
to  one  another  and  it  is  worth  while  mentioning 
that  the  vocabulary  of  all  races  reveals  that  relation- 
ship. 

The  girl  we  love  is  "sweet,"  so  sweet  we  could 
"eat  her  up"  and  "devour"  her  with  kisses;  we  are 
"hungry"  for  her  caresses,  and  confectioners  of  all 

[229] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


nations  have  some  dainty  or  other  which  is  called 
"kisses." 

The  very  gestures  of  the  lover  are  vaguely 
reminiscent  of  those  made  by  some  marine 
creatures  which  throw  their  tentacles  around  their 
victim  and  after  immobilizing  it  apply  their  mouths 
to  it  and  absorb  it. 

The  part  played  by  the  parent  image  in  the 
genesis  of  love  should  be  recalled  when  we  wish 
to  answer  the  question:  why  does  love  die? 

As  the  love  object  changes  with  age,  its  appear- 
ance may  not  correspond  any  longer  to  the  parent 
image  which  was  originally  responsible  for  the 
erotropism  culminating  in  a  permanent  union. 
The  organic  "reasons"  the  love  subject  had  for 
"loving"  the  love  object  no  longer  exist.  The 
white  haired  and  stout  wife  no  longer  reminds  her 
husband's  unconscious  of  his  blonde  and  slender 
mother,  nor  does  the  bald  and  portly  husband  repre- 
sent any  longer  to  his  wife  the  father  image  which 
captivated  her. 

And  in  this  connection,  I  would  suggest  a  more 
systematic  study  of  a  phenomenon  designated  as 
fetichism  and  which  in  certain  cases  is  the  basis 
of  a  sexual  perversion. 

Certain  parts  of  the  body  wield  a  stronger  physi- 
cal attraction  than  others  on  certain  individuals. 
[230] 


Fetichism 

They  create  memory  images  of  such  compelling 
power  that  inanimate  objects  symbolizing  them  are 
often  cherished  greatly  by  lovers.  (A  lock  of  hair 
may  bring  back  the  memory  of  beautiful  tresses, 
a  glove,  that  of  a  loved  hand.) 

Every  human  being  is  unavoidably  attracted  by 
some  part  of  the  love  object's  body  and  that  part 
varies  with  every  human  being. 

Starting  with  the  theory  of  parent  fixation  as  a 
basis  for  attraction  we  may  assume  that  the  part 
or  parts  constituting  the  fixation  played  a  special 
role  in  the  life  and  activities  of  the  present  image. 

In  its  perverse  form,  fetichism  shows  the  abso- 
lute domination  of  one  part  of  the  body  or  of  its 
symbol,  in  acute  cases  being  even  more  potent  than 
the  part  it  represents. 

In  Mirbeau's  novel,  "Memoirs  of  a  Chamber- 
maid," we  have  a  pervert,  whose  sexuality  can  only 
be  aroused  by  the  sight  or  feel  of  women's  foot- 
wear. The  case  is  taken  from  real  life  and  is  not 
an  unusual  one. 

All  human  beings  are  fetichists  to  a  certain  de- 
gree and  between  Mirbeau's  neurotic  and  the  young 
man  who  gazes  fondly  at  his  sweetheart's  picture, 
there  is  a  difference  of  degree,  not  of  kind. 

As  a  matter  of  practical  conduct  it  would  be  most 
useful  to  determine  the  amount  of  fetichism  which 

[231] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


enters  into  the  make-up  of  every  case  of  erotropism. 
If  each  mate  could  determine  accurately  what  parts 
of  his  person  determined  the  erotropism  of  his 
partner,  a  conscious  effort  might  be  made  to  retain 
as  completely  as  possible  the  part  made  attractive 
by  fetichism,  and  thus  to  prolong  the  affective  dura- 
tion of  the  partner's  love. 

The  discarded  love  object  very  unjustly  charges 
the  lover  who  has  grown  indifferent  with  being 
fickle,  changing,  faithless. 

The  truth  is  that  the  victim  of  that  fickleness 
is  the  one  who  has  changed,  who  no  longer  recalls 
to  his  or  her  mate's  unconscious  the  parent  image, 
and  hence  cannot  any  longer  determine  his  or  her 
erotropism. 

I  might  compare  the  "victim"  to  a  dead  battery 
which  no  longer  produces  any  current.  If  the 
fickle  one  fails  to  receive  a  "thrill"  it  is  not  because 
he  is  no  longer  a  good  conductor  but  because  there 
is  no  longer  any  current  he  could  conduct. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  there  are  men  and 
women  of  the  so-called  "indifferent"  type,  who  are 
never  aroused  very  deeply  because  their  autonomic 
system,  being  perfectly  poised,  has  a  tendency  to 
re-establish  constantly  the  balance  of  the  secretions 
of  the  vagus  system  and  those  of  the  sympathetic 
system,  together  with  the  emotions  and  attitudes 
[232] 


The  Unfeeling  Type 


which  correspond  to  them.  That  type  is  eminently 
suited  for  the  life  struggle,  as  it  "recovers"  quickly, 
never  remains  long  under  the  sway  of  any  emotion 
and  is  ready  to  record  new  emotions,  accurately  but 
briefly.  Such  people  do  not  remain  in  love  very 
long  and  are  likely  to  be  berated  soundly  for  their 
coldness. 

The  reproaches  addressed  to  them  are  both  just 
and  unjust:  they  are  built  organically  so  as  to  resist 
a  too  complete  subjugation  by  any  love  object  and 
their  attitude  is  unconsciously  determined.  On 
the  other  hand  in  the  case  of  a  union  which  should 
be  permanent,  they  could,  by  using  their  will  power, 
place  themselves  in  mental  and  physical  attitudes 
representing,  dramatizing,  so  to  speak,  the  feelings 
they  wish  to  experience.  A  good  actor,  represent- 
ing a  certain  feeling  on  the  stage,  causes  the  audi- 
ence to  experience  that  feeling  for  a  certain  time. 
We  can,  by  acting  certain  feelings,  produce  in  our- 
selves the  secretions  which  correspond  to  them. 

Attitudes  can  be  acquired  and,  in  the  case  of 
marriage  relations,  when  complete  submission  to 
our  unconscious  urges  is  asocial  and  cruel,  a  sim- 
ple rule  of  behaviour  can  be  offered. 

As  will  power  on  the  other  hand  is  probably  the 
resultant  effect  of  a  keen  awareness  of  the  various 
possible  choices  and  of  a  perfect  understanding  of 

[233] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


their  consequences,  that  assumption  of  a  beneficial 
attitude  is  not  within  every  one's  reach.  And  in 
this  case,  as  in  many  others,  praise  or  vitupera- 
tion is  out  of  place. 

This  must  be  always  remembered  when  we  deal 
for  instance  with  love's  perversions.  The  word 
perversion  is  generally  fraught  in  the  layman's 
mind  with  loathsome  connotations. 

A  perversion  is,  to  many,  due  to  "low,"  "ani- 
mal," "filthy,"  "criminal"  instincts.  Perversions 
may  be  filthy  and  appear  low  and  animal,  but 
there  is  nothing  "criminal"  nor  "instinctive"  about 
them.  The  pervert  certainly  does  not  wish  to  break 
any  law,  nor  is  he  impelled  by  an  "instinct."  He 
is  a  pitiable  type  whose  education  and  training  has 
made  him  the  imperfect  human  specimen  he  is. 

Psychoanalysts  are  all  agreed  on  the  genesis 
of  passive  male  homosexualism.  The  passive  male 
homosexual  is  in  every  case  the  son  of  a  widow  or 
divorced  mother,  separated  from  her  husband  by 
death,  desertion  or  legal  proceedings  soon  after  the 
boy's  birth. 

The  boy,  compelled  to  imitate  some  one  in  order 
to  have  a  standard  of  behaviour,  copies  his  mother's 
attitude  of  physical  indifference  to  women  and 
physical  interest  in  men. 

In  every  respect  but  in  the  anatomical  respect 
[234] 


Pigeons  and  Lovers 


he  becomes  a  woman,  and  later  in  life  will  con- 
ceive of  sexual  gratification  as  woman  would.  Pos- 
session by  a  man  will  become  his  love  goal. 

Experiments  made  on  pigeons  show  that  the 
process  is  the  same  among  those  birds.  A  young 
male  pigeon  raised  among  males  in  the  absence  of 
any  female  will,  when  reaching  adulthood,  be  at- 
tracted by  males  only  whom  he  will  treat  at  mating 
time  as  though  they  were  females.  A  male  pigeon 
raised  among  females  only  will  at  mating  time  play 
the  part  of  a  female. 

A  pigeon  raised  in  complete  isolation  from  any 
males  or  females  will  try  to  mate  with  any  inani- 
mate object  found  in  his  cage,  or  with  the  hand  of 
the  person  feeding  him,  and  if  placed  in  a  cage 
with  a  female  will  pay  absolutely  no  attention  to 
her  at  mating  time. 

Here  as  in  the  case  of  passenger  pigeons  mating 
with  ring  doves,  instinct  proves  to  be  at  times 
infinitely  weaker  than  training. 

The  study  and  treatment  of  sexual  perversions 
are  still  in  their  infancy.  Men  and  women  prac- 
tising their  perversions  are  deriving  therefrom  a 
minimum  of  gratification  which  generally  saves 
them  from  a  well-marked  form  of  neurosis  and 
hence  they  do  not  seek  the  advice  of  a  psychologist. 
Those  who  repress  their  desire  for  abnormal  inter- 

[235] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


course  and  merge  into  a  neurosis  are  dangerous 
patients  to  handle,  for  they  suffer  from  many  delu- 
sions of  invariably  the  same  content:  that  is  that 
they  receive  sexual  advances  from  people  of  their 
own  sex.  Those  delusions  are  likely  to  apply  to 
the  psychiatrist  handling  their  case  and  unless  they 
are  confined  in  an  institution,  may  very  easily  start 
a  train  of  gossip  likely  to  wreck  their  adviser's 
reputation. 

The  perversions  known  as  sadism  and  masochism, 
the  first  being  a  craving  to  inflict  suffering  upon 
human  beings,  the  latter  a  craving  to  torture 
ourselves  or  to  suffer  pain  at  the  hands  of  another 
person,  may  be  due  in  their  mild  form  to  the  child's 
lack  of  understanding  of  the  relationship  existing 
between,  for  instance,  a  strong,  athletic  father  and  a 
delicate,  slight  mother.  The  playful  imitations 
of  violence,  the  playful  and  contented  pretence  at 
suffering  indulged  in  by  the  man  and  the  woman 
when  fondling  each  other  in  their  children's  pres- 
ence, may  lead  one  child  to  commit  in  reality 
cruelties  which  his  father  only  shammed,  another 
child  to  seek  suffering  which  his  mother  seemed 
to  feel. 

Acute  cases,  when  a  man  or  a  woman  experiences 
no  sexual  gratification  unless  they  can  inflict  suf- 
fering on  their  mate  or  be  subjected  by  their  mate 
[236] 


What  Is  a  Pervert? 


to  cruel  treatment,  are  justly  attributed  by  Freud  to 
the  witnessing  by  young  children  of  their  parents' 
embracing,  who  misunderstanding  the  nature  of  the 
act  identify  themselves  either  with  the  apparently 
cruel  father  or  the  apparently  abused  mother. 

Like  all  other  maladjustments,  the  various  mal- 
adjustments of  the  love  life,  perverse  or  not,  call, 
not  for  censure  or  punishment  but  for  understand- 
ing and  psychological  treatment.  When  for  in- 
stance the  nature  of  homosexualism,  its  involuntary 
character  and  the  fact  that  it  is  forced  on  the  "per- 
vert" by  his  wrong  training,  and  not  acquired  by 
him  for  purposes  of  gratification,  is  better  known 
to  the  general  public,  psychiatrists  and  analysts 
may  be  able  to  effect  many  cures  of  that  "perver- 
sion" as  well  as  of  sadism  and  masochism. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  basis  for  the  theories  of  love  advanced  by  the 
various  analysts  is  Freud's  "Three  Contributions  to  the 
Theory  of  Sex"  (Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co.) 
in  which  he  discusses  infantile  sexuality,  puberty  and 
sexual  perversions.  His  discussion  of  homosexualism  in 
"Leonardo  da  Vinci"  is  the  least  scientific  or  convincing 
work  of  his  on  the  subject.  Poul  Bjerre,  the  Scandi- 
navian analyst,  presents  in  his  "Theory  and  Practice  of 
Psychoanalysis"  (Badger),  several  cases  illustrating 
forms  of  attachment  with  a  morbid  complexion.  Jacques 

[237] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Loeb's  remarks  on  Heliotropism  in  his  "Forced  Move- 
ments, Tropism  and  Animal  Conduct"  will  supply  the 
reader  with  several  examples  of  chemical  determinism. 
Perversions  are  discussed  fully  in  S.  Ferenczi's  "Con- 
tributions to  Psychoanalysis." 


[238] 


CHAPTER  II:  CAN  WE  SUBLIMATE  OUR 
CRAVINGS? 

None  of  the  words  created  by  Freud  has  lent 
itself  to  more  misinterpretation  than  the  word 
sublimation.  Sublimation  is  an  unfortunate  ex- 
pression. It  is  not  related  in  its  analytic  meaning 
to  sublimation  as  understood  by  chemists.  It  be- 
comes involuntarily  associated  with  the  adjective 
sublime  and  this  association  is  the  cause  of  a  good 
deal  of  mischief. 

By  sublimation,  Freud  understands  a  process 
which  seeks  to  utilize  the  sexual  energy,  immobi- 
lized by  repressions  and  set  free  by  analysis,  for 
higher  purposes  of  a  non-sexual  nature. 

This  is  of  course  extremely  vague  and  slightly 
fantastic  and  reminds  us  of  the  attempts  made  by 
alchemists  in  the  middle  ages  to  transmute  "base 
metals"  into  gold. 

We  must  beware  of  false  analogies:  heat  can  be 
transformed  into  power,  power  into  heat  and  both 
into  light,  which  in  its  turn  can  be  transformed 
into  power  or  heat,  but  human  energy  and  energy 
as  defined  by  physicists,  while  probably  very  simi- 

[239] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


lar,  cannot  be  considered  as  synonymous  and  treated 
as  such. 

The  human  body  is,  as  Kempf  has  said,  a  bio- 
logical machine,  but  biological  machines  and  ordi- 
nary machinery  present  one  capital  difference. 
While  some  mechanical  apparatus  may  be  so  con- 
structed that  it  can  be  utilized  in  ten  or  twenty  dif- 
ferent ways  at  the  same  time,  the  use  or  non-use 
of  one  or  several  of  its  parts  does  not  affect  the 
other  parts.  In  the  human  organism  all  the  parts 
are  closely  related  and  abuse  or  disuse  of  one  of 
them  has  a  repercussion  in  all  the  organs  of  the 
body. 

A  part  of  a  machine  may  never  be  used  and  yet 
remain  in  perfect  condition  if  protected  against 
rust.  Any  part  of  the  biological  machine  will 
wither  and  degenerate  unless  it  is  allowed  to  per- 
form its  specific  functions.  Atrophied  muscles  and 
ankylosed  joints  are  the  result  of  lack  of  normal 
activity. 

Cravings,  some  people  will  say,  are  not  to  be 
compared  to  the  play  of  muscles  or  joints.  The 
tendency  of  modern  psychology,  however,  is  to 
identify  more  and  more  closely  cravings  with  cer- 
tain definite  segments  of  the  autonomic  nervous 
system,  and  when  that  identification  has  been  com- 
pleted it  will  be  obvious  that  to  the  atrophy  of  a 
[240] 


Holy  Men  and  Their  Trials 


certain  nerve  there  must  correspond  the  atrophy  of 
the  craving  that  nerve  carries. 

While  sublimation  is  a  new  word,  attempts  at 
sublimation  are  nothing  new.  The  ascetics  who 
scourged  their  flesh  to  kill  their  "animal"  desires, 
who  withdrew  into  the  desert  to  shun  all  tempta- 
tions, were  attempting  to  sublimate  their  cravings. 

In  too  many  cases,  the  result  was  not  especially 
gratifying.  The  repression  of  a  normal  craving 
often  meant  the  appearance  of  an  abnormal  symp- 
tom. The  devil  tempted  sorely  the  holy  men  and 
women  who  were  fighting  the  flesh,  which  meant 
that  they  exchanged  normal  reality  for  hallucina- 
tions, normal  desires  for  perverse  desires. 

No  normal  craving  can  be  normally  repressed. 
Nor  can  it  be  normally  sublimated.  Sexual  desire 
cannot  be  transformed  into  artistic  achievement, 
philanthropy,  social  usefulness. 

Sexual  desire  may  be  killed  by  castration,  after 
which  it  may  be  that  more  energy  can  be  expended 
by  the  subject  on  attaining  other  goals  of  a  "higher, 
non-sexual  character."  Even  this  is  rather  dubious, 
as  sexual  activity  is  always  linked  and  almost 
synonymous  with  many  other  organic  activities. 

The  desirability  of  sublimation,  except  as  a  social 
convenience,  remains  to  be  proved.  Freud's  asser- 
tion that  culture  owes  many  of  its  conquests  to  the 

[241] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


sublimation  of  sexual  cravings  is  contradicted  by 
the  biography  of  many  famous  men;  let  us  only 
mention  Goethe  and  Rodin,  who  displayed  a  fever- 
ish creative  activity  while  indulging  freely  and 
openly  their  sexual  desires.  Freud  attempts  to  tell 
us  that  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  creative  powers  may 
have  been  enhanced  by  his  lack  of  desire  for 
women's  love.  But  Leonardo  was  a  homosexual 
and  satisfied  his  cravings  abnormally,  which  used 
up  at  least  as  much  energy  as  though  he  had  satis- 
fied them  normally. 

While  guilty  of  vagueness  when  propounding  his 
theory  of  sublimation,  Freud  should  not  be  held 
responsible  for  some  of  the  vagaries  which  some  of 
his  followers  and  some  of  the  Swiss  analysts  have 
indulged  in  regarding  the  desirability  and  possi- 
bility of  sublimating  sexual  cravings. 

"We  must  not  forget,"  Freud  said  in  one  of  his 
lectures,  "that  a  part  of  the  suppressed  sexual  crav- 
ings has  a  right  to  direct  satisfaction  and  should 
find  it  in  life.  Exaggerated  sexual  repression 
simply  hastens  our  flight  from  reality  and  into  a 
neurosis  without  assuring  any  cultural  gain. 

"We  must  not  neglect  the  animal  part  of  our 
nature.  The  elasticity  of  sex  may  lure  some  of  us 
to  attempt  a  more  and  more  complete  sublimation 
destined  to  promote  high  cultural  aims.  But  even 
[242] 


The  Education  of  a  Horse 


as  our  modern  machines  can  only  transform  a  part 
of  the  heat  applied  to  them  into  useful  mechanical 
work,  sublimation  can  only  use  for  other  aims  a 
part  of  the  sexual  energy. 

"If  the  repression  of  sexuality  is  pushed  too 
far  it  amounts  to  a  robbery  committed  against  the 
organism." 

And  he  concluded  his  lecture  with  a  story  which 
left  no  doubt  as  to  his  opinion  in  the  matter. 

A  village  community  kept  a  horse  that  could  do 
an  enormous  amount  of  work.  The  wiseacres  of 
the  community  thought,  however,  that  he  consumed 
too  much  fodder.  They  decided,  therefore,  to  train 
him  to  subsist  on  smaller  and  smaller  rations  of 
fodder.  The  horse  was  apparently  none  the  worse 
for  his  scanty  diet.  He  finally  was  able  to  subsist 
on  one  stalk  of  hay  a  day.  The  next  day,  he  was 
to  be  put  to  work  without  any  fodder  at  all.  On 
the  morning  of  that  day,  however,  he  was  found 
dead  in  his  stall.  The  sublimation  of  his  craving 
for  food  was  complete. 

The  constantly  increasing  repression  to  which 
sexual  cravings  are  submitted,  owing  to  the  grow- 
ing complexity  of  community  life,  compel  every 
thinking  human  being  to  give  the  subject  the  earnest 
consideration  it  deserves. 

A  mere  denial  of  the  possibility  of  sublimation 

[243] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


as  understood  by  Freud  or  a  convenient  assertion 
of  its  possibility  by  well  meaning,  though  irre- 
sponsible moral  zealots,  will  not  solve  the  problem. 

The  problem,  however,  has  not  been  formulated 
properly. 

The  question  is  not  as  to  whether  we  can  subli- 
mate the  sexual  craving  as  understood  biologically, 
but  as  to  whether  we  can  sublimate  the  sexual  crav- 
ing as  complicated  by  modern  civilization. 

Sexual  desire  at  the  present  day  has  been  com- 
pletely exiled  from  polite  society,  from  conversa- 
tion, from  literature,  from  pictorial  representation, 
and  relegated  to  the  bedroom. 

Many  of  its  more  or  less  unavoidable  conse- 
quences, love,  affection,  tenderness,  admiration, 
etc.,  have  been  given  an  undue  prominence  for  the 
purpose  of  drawing  a  veil  over  the  gross  physical 
phenomena  of  sex. 

As  we  are  too  often  the  victims  of  the  vocabulary 
we  use,  many  rely  upon  the  vocabulary  of  polite 
society  to  assist  them  in  their  flight  from  gross 
reality. 

A  woman  unable  to  voice  publicly  her  desire 
for  sexual  gratification  declares  that  she  seeks  a 
companion.  And  she  probably  means  that,  too. 
And  if  her  lack  of  gratification  should  be  the  cause 
of  a  neurosis,  it  would  be  most  important  to  know 
[244] 


Madame  Bovary 


that  her  sexual  craving  is  complicated  by  a  craving 
for  companionship. 

Almost  any  craving  can  be  easily  gratified  in  our 
modern  world  so  long  as  it  remains  dissociated  from 
other  cravings.  The  sexual  craving  being  frowned 
upon  by  our  hypocritical  civilization,  is  constantly 
associated  with  many  other  cravings  which  the 
normal  man,  as  well  as  the  neurotic,  imagine  to  be 
inseparable  components  of  "love." 

The  love  of  an  individual  for  an  individual  of 
the  opposite  sex  may,  according  to  temperaments, 
include  one  or  all  of  the  following  cravings:  domi- 
nation, companionship,  protection,  pride,  boastful- 
ness,  submission,  praise,  possession  of  beauty, 
active  or  passive  tenderness,  wealth,  romance,  ex- 
citement. 

While  every  one  of  these  non-sexual  cravings 
may  be  invoked  by  men  and  women  to  justify  sexual 
indiscretions  to  which  their  gratification  has  led, 
it  may  be  also  stated  that  in  thousands  of  cases,  the 
sexual  gratification  was  an  incident  of  the  gratifica- 
tion of  one  or  several  of  these  cravings. 

Flaubert's  silly  and  touching  heroine,  Madame 
Bovary,  was  anything  but  an  oversexed  woman  car- 
ried away  by  her  sensuality.  Love,  to  her,  meant 
romance,  sentimental  companionship,  the  transla- 
tion into  real  life  of  the  fiction  and  poetry  she  had 

[245] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


read  or  memorized,  mysterious  trysts,  perilous  situ- 
ations, obstacles  successfully  surmounted,  the 
breaking  away  from  conventionality  and  monotony, 
an  opportunity  to  give  vent  to  the  trashy  lyricism 
which  filled  her  day  dreams,  etc.  Those  were 
really  the  things  she  craved  but  her  lack  of  intelli- 
gence, of  ability  in  any  direction,  of  psychological 
insight,  of  altruistic  guidance,  conspired  to  convince 
her  that  in  love  only  could  she  attain  the  gratifica- 
tion of  all  her  desires. 

When  reality  proved  cruelly  deceptive  and  she 
saw  all  her  dreams  shattered,  she  fled  from  reality 
by  the  path  of  suicide. 

Others  adopt  the  path  of  the  neurosis,  seeking  an 
abnormal  gratification  of  a  sometimes  very  painful 
type  or  imagining  that  all  their  wishes  have  been 
fulfilled  and  living  the  unreal  life  of  the  insane. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  even  a  moderate 
sexuality  reinforced  and  complicated  by  so  many 
sentimental  associations  becomes  a  tyrant  against 
whose  domination  the  subject's  will  can  hardly  pre- 
vail. 

The  task  of  the  analyst  in  such  cases  is  easily 
defined,  although  difficult  of  execution,  for  the  truth 
in  such  matters  is  not  always  readily  ascertained. 

While  a  subject  may  deny  vehemently  to  his  asso- 
ciates that  he  is  obsessed  by  sexual  thoughts,  he 
[246] 


Parasitic  Cravings 


may  in  the  seclusion  of  a  physician's  or  an  analyst's 
office,  greatly  exaggerate  those  cravings  which  he 
aims  to  make  responsible  for  his  condition. 

The  analyst  must  then  determine  all  the  parasitic 
elements  which  have  attached  themselves  to  the 
sexual  cravings  as  barnacles  attach  themselves  to 
a  ship  and  endeavour  to  make  the  subject  see  them, 
not  as  essential  details  of  his  obsession,  but  as 
separate  entities. 

Every  one  of  Emma  Bovary's  cravings  could 
have  been  satisfied  separately  in  non-sexual  ways  if 
she  had  not  relied  upon  an  ideal  lover  to  bring  to 
her  all  the  elements  of  happiness,  if  she  had  entered 
the  road  of  positive  personal  achievement. 

Likewise  many  a  woman  suffering  from  sick 
headaches  because  her  husband  or  lover  neglects 
her  and  fails  to  help  her  carry  out  her  dreams  of 
domination,  could  be  relieved  of  her  symptoms  if 
she  could  be  made  to  see  in  how  many  other  direc- 
tions her  will-to-power  could  exert  itself. 

After  positive  means  have  been  agreed  upon 
between  the  subject  and  the  analyst  for  the  gratifica- 
tion of  the  various  parasitic  cravings  which  have 
been  separated  from  his  sexual  craving,  there  will 
be  a  residuum  of  pure  sexuality  for  which  no  sub- 
limation can  be  suggested. 

If  that  craving  does  not  receive  satisfaction  of 

[247] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


a  normal  nature  it  will  proceed  to  satisfy  itself  in 
more  or  less  abnormal  ways,  the  least  abnormal  of 
which  will  be,  according  to  the  subject's  repres- 
sions, gross  sexual  dreams  or  symbolical  anxiety 
dreams.  Further  analysis  should  endeavour  to 
transform  such  anxiety  dreams  into  obvious  dreams 
so  as  to  avoid  the  organic  waste  corresponding  to 
anxiety. 

No  "ethical"  solution,  however,  can  be  offered 
by  any  honest  analyst  for  the  subject  who,  owing  to 
certain  complications  of  modern  life,  cannot  secure 
normal  sexual  gratification. 

Religious  meditation  may  satisfy  the  mystical 
cravings  which  are  often  associated  with  sex- 
ual desire,  but  it  does  not  satisfy  that  desire  ex- 
cept in  abnormal  ways,  as  in  the  case  of  Zinzendorf , 
who  imagined  himself  a  woman  in  the  arms  of  the 
Heavenly  Bridegroom. 

Charitable  or  social  work  of  the  philanthropic 
type  will  use  up  the  masochistic  love  components 
which  cause  the  subject  to  expend  care  or  tender- 
ness upon  others. 

Artistic  endeavour  would  gratify  egotistical  crav- 
ings, and  so  would  public  speaking,  acting,  and 
other  activities  more  or  less  exhibitionistic  in  their 
character. 

Joining  clubs,  societies,  etc.  is  the  best  way  to 
[248] 


Positive  Suggestions 


satisfy  the  desire  for  companionship;  organizing 
new  groups  and  assuming  their  leadership  would 
relieve  the  feeling  of  inferiority  which  drives  one 
to  secure  some  form  of  domination. 

A  thousand  other  suggestions  for  craving-grati- 
fication of  a  positive,  socially  useful  and  beneficial 
type  can  be  suggested  by  the  analyst  to  his  subject 
and  should  be  suggested,  but  I  repeat,  none  of  them 
will  reduce  the  power  of  the  sexual  craving  itself. 

The  sexual  craving,  however,  after  being  freed 
of  all  parasitical  cravings,  will  appear  infinitely 
less  insistent. 

A  comparison  with  another  physical  craving  will 
make  the  point  clearer.  Certain  neurotics  are  tor- 
tured by  a  constant  need  to  urinate  which  may  be 
designated  as  "nervous,"  for  its  satisfaction  reveals 
that  an  insignificant  amount  of  urine  has  accumu- 
lated and  that  the  pressure  exerted  by  it  is  not  suf- 
ficient to  demand  the  voiding  of  the  bladder. 

It  is  not  the  quantity  of  urine  present  in  the  blad- 
der, nor  the  condition  of  the  bladder  or  of  the 
urinary  passages  which  creates  the  need,  but  some 
compulsion  which  uses  the  urinary  organs  as  a  con- 
venient means  of  self-expression. 

When  the  obsessive  ideas  connected  with  urina- 
tion are  removed  by  analysis,  urine  can  be  retained 
in  the  bladder  for  several  hours  without  causing  any 

[249] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


discomfort.  In  this  case  we  have  a  parasitic  crav- 
ing attaching  itself  to  a  physical  function  and 
making  the  performance  of  that  function  a  con- 
stantly reappearing  need. 

Cravings  for  certain  foods  disappear,  leaving 
simply  a  healthy  appetite  for  those  foods,  when 
the  associations  which  make  such  foods  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  subject's  peace  of  mind  or  hap- 
piness have  been  made  conscious.  A  patient  un- 
able to  digest  anything  but  milk  and  hard  brown 
rolls  which  he  carried  in  his  pocket  and  constantly 
toyed  with,  began  to  assimilate  easily  other  ali- 
ments when  he  realized  his  regression  to  an  infan- 
tile diet  and  to  a  symbolic  form  of  coprophilism. 

His  liking  for  milk  and  rolls  did  not  pass  away 
when  he  gained  insight  into  the  unconscious  reasons 
for  his  abnormal  craving  for  them.  He  still  consid- 
ered them  as  pleasant  forms  of  nourishment  but 
he  was  no  longer  obsessed  by  the  thought  of  them. 

Whether  the  sexual  craving  is  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, it  should  be  submitted  to  a  careful  analy- 
sis leading  to  its  disintegration  into  a  genuine  sexual 
need  and  various  parasitic  cravings. 

Finally  a  word  should  be  said  about  subjects 
who,  owing  to  certain  fears,  fear  of  disease,  fear 
of  impotence,  fear  of  "injuring  their  brain,"  shun 
sexual  gratification. 
[250] 


Convenient  Excuses 


Their  case  is  generally  rather  complicated,  for 
their  fear  itself  is  a  neurotic  fancy  which  leads 
them  to  submit  to  a  deprivation  likely,  in  its  turn,  to 
cause  more  neurotic  complications. 

After  their  phobia  has  been  analysed  and  re- 
moved, they  should  be  enlightened  sexually  and 
freed  from  the  various  superstitious  beliefs  rela- 
tive to  sexual  activities  which  are  being  spread 
abroad  by  quacks  or  ignorant  puritans  and  upon 
which  the  neurotic  imagination  seizes  as  a  conven- 
ient excuse  for  certain  forms  of  negativism. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Very  little  has  been  published  on  the  subject  of  subli- 
mation besides  Freud's  remarks  in  his  lectures  on  the 
"Origin  and  Development  of  Psychoanalysis,"  delivered 
at  Clark  University.  0.  Pfister,  a  lay  analyst,  of  Switzer- 
land, has  devoted  to  it  several  pages  of  his  book  "The 
Psychoanalytic  Method"  (Moffat,  Yard).  "Sanity  in 
Sex"  by  W.  J.  Fielding  (Dodd,  Mead)  will  offer  valu- 
able suggestions  to  the  student  of  sex  problems. 


[251] 


CHAPTER  III.     PURITANISM  A  DIGNIFIED 
NEUROSIS 

Humorists  very  often  express  in  a  few  lines  what 
long-drawn  psychological  treatises  based  on  many 
tests  and  experiments  do  not  always  make  very 
clear.  No  better  analysis  of  puritanism  could  be 
found  than  that  contained  in  this  rather  ancient  but 
very  pointed  story: 

A  puritanical  woman  telephoned  to  the  police 
asking  that  small  boys  who  were  bathing  naked  in 
front  of  her  house  be  arrested.  An  officer  was  sent 
to  drive  them  a  mile  or  so  farther  down  the  river. 

A  few  minutes  later  she  called  up  again:  "I 
can  still  see  them,  from  the  roof  of  the  house." 
Once  more  a  policeman  went  forth  to  frighten  the 
.urchins  away. 

Half  an  hour  later,  the  police  station  phone  rang 
again:  "I  can  still  see  them,"  the  puritanical 
woman  said,  "through  my  field  glasses." 

In  other  words,  a  subject,  sexually  hypersensi- 
tive, discovers  a  sexual  stimulus  in  an  object 
which  in  a  normal  subject  would  not  produce  any 
stimulation  of  a  sexual  type.  The  subject  resents 
[252] 


The  Puritan  Is  Abnormal 


the  disturbance  thus  produced  in  his  sexual  life 
and,  unable  to  resist  the  attraction  of  the  stimulus, 
demands  that  the  stimulus  be  removed  by  legal  in- 
tervention. 

The  records  of  the  New  Haven  courts  dating  back 
to  the  early  days  of  the  New  England  colonies  pre- 
sent that  picture  over  and  over  again.  Many  are 
the  cases  in  which  a  whole  community  spied  day 
and  night  for  weeks  or  months  upon  some  indis- 
crete pair  of  lovers  and,  after  satisfying  its  voyeur 
instincts,  finally  delivered  them  to  justice  to  be 
whipped  for  their  sins. 

The  normal  indignation  of  the  witnesses  was  in- 
extricably mixed  with  a  sense  of  perverse  grati- 
fication and  resentment  not  entirely  devoid  of 
envy. 

The  puritan,  taking  the  word  in  its  modern  ac- 
ception,  is  a  sexually  abnormal  person.  Accord- 
ing to  whether  its  abnormality  is  anaesthesia  or 
hyperaesthesia,  we  have  two  types,  both  negative 
socially,  one  of  which,  however,  is  seldom  objec- 
tionable. 

The  sexually  frigid  person  whose  frigidity  is 
organic,  being  due  to  undeveloped  genitals  or  low 
vitality,  cannot  understand  the  influence  exerted 
on  normal  individuals  by  sexual  stimuli.  *  That 
type  links  sexual  activities  with  urinary  or  anal 

[253] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


functions  and  for  reasons  of  delicacy  avoids  any 
mention  of  them. 

Such  people  lead  what  is  generally  considered 
as  a  "pure"  life;  suggestive  literature,  theatrical 
performances,  pictorial  art,  etc.,  do  not  appeal  to 
them,  and  they  are  likely  to  regard  any  one  in- 
dulging in  sexual  pleasure  as  "low"  or  "animal." 

They  have  their  counterpart  in  every  walk  of 
life,  where  we  meet  people  who  do  not  care  for 
cabbage,  who  do  not  smoke,  who  do  not  like  to 
climb  mountains  and  never  go  fishing,  but  who  at 
the  same  time  let  others  eat  cabbage,  smoke,  climb 
mountains  and  go  fishing. 

The  hyperaesthetic  puritan,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  not  satisfied  with  abstaining  from  cabbage.  He 
wishes  to  suppress  cabbage  wherever  found  and 
to  jail  those  selling  it  and  eating  it. 

Oversexed  neurotics  not  only  are  profoundly 
disturbed  by  sexual  thoughts  and  facts  but  place 
a  sexual  complexion  on  almost  everything. 

It  was  only  last  summer  that  a  Massachusetts 
woman  had  her  neighbour  arrested  for  allowing 
his  two  infants  to  bathe  in  the  sea  without  bathing 
suits.  Every  summer  the  sight  of  one-piece  bath- 
ing suits  for  men  produces  a  "brainstorm"  in  some 
oversensitive  neurotic  and  bathers  are  fined  by 
stupid  judges.  A  few  months  ago  a  society  was 
[254] 


Outlawing  the  Bible 


formed  in  New  York  City  to  prevent  owners  of  de- 
partment stores  from  showing  "suggestive"  lingerie 
in  their  windows. 

When  we  remember  that  ten  years  ago  or  so,  the 
New  York  Society  for  the  Suppression  of  Vice 
raided  a  perfectly  legitimate  art  school  and  seized 
a  catalogue  containing  reproductions  of  nude  draw- 
ings made  by  the  pupils  of  that  school,  that  the  same 
society  has  caused  purely  medical  books  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  mails  and  is  at  present  trying  to 
censor  articles  appearing  in  medical  publications, 
we  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "organized 
puritanism"  is  not  a  constructive  force  but  a 
neurotic  symptom  unjustly  dignified  by  the  police 
and  the  courts,  a  mere  form  of  sexual  hyperaes- 
thesia. 

Even  the  sacred  books  can  furnish  those  neurotics 
with  sexual  stimulation.  George  Francis  Train 
was  jailed  in  the  eighties  for  publishing  the  Bible 
serially  in  the  Citizen  and  thus  "debauching  the 
young."  ...  A  group  of  puritans  investigated 
Chicago's  "vice"  a  few  years  ago  and  drew  a  sen- 
sational report  of  their  findings.  Thereupon  an- 
other group  of  puritans  found  that  report  too  fas- 
cinating and  managed  to  have  it  excluded  from  the 
mails  on  the  ground  of  obscenity. 

The  complexity  of  modern  society  makes  a  great 

[255] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


amount  of  sexual  repression  unavoidable  and  chil- 
dren, for  instance,  reaching  the  age  of  puberty 
must  be  protected  against  certain  dangers.  Sexual 
truths,  however,  would  be  a  better  protection  for 
them  than  sexual  lies,  and  while  puritans  usually 
harp  on  the  protection  needed  by  immature  minds, 
they  never  make  any  positive  suggestion  for  mak- 
ing minds  more  mature. 

The  puritan  himself  is  extremely  immature  and 
romantic.  In  all  puritanical  ways  of  thought-ex- 
pression we  find  a  large  measure  of  sexual  romance. 

Scientific  terms  place  upon  human  intelligence 
limits  beyond  which  it  must  not  go  if  it  wishes  to 
remain  accurate.  The  words  syphilis  and  gonor- 
rhea not  only  present  definite  clinical  pictures  but 
strip  the  diseases  they  indicate  of  any  romance. 

The  puritan,  on  the  other  hand,  who  designates 
them  as  "social  diseases"  or  "diseases  of  vice"  and 
fails  to  describe  any  of  their  symptoms,  makes  them 
mysterious  and  hence  to  certain  minds  infinitely 
attractive. 

The  word  pregnancy  is  generally  heard  in  re- 
spectful silence.  The  expression  "an  interesting 
condition"  generally  elicits  a  smile. 

Likewise,  the  puritan  shuns  the  words  brothel, 
prostitute,  sex,  and  prefers  the  more  elastic  and 
more  suggestive  expressions:  house  of  ill  fame, 
[256] 


Woman's  Immature  Mind 


woman  of  questionable  reputation,  animal  in- 
stincts. 

Not  only  do  we  find  in  the  puritan  vocabulary 
the  vagueness  which  promotes  sexual  dreaming  but 
we  observe  also  the  inaccuracy  and  displacement 
which  are  characteristic  of  the  neurotic  escape  from 
reality.  Arms,  even  bare,  are  decent,  but  legs  are 
tolerable  only  when  renamed  limbs,  the  belly  be- 
comes the  stomach  and  a  woman  carries  her  unborn 
child  "under  her  heart." 

The  puritan  continually  indulges  in  the  dispar- 
agement of  woman  which  is  one  of  the  most  char- 
acteristic neurotic  and  negativist  traits.  The  fear 
of  the  sexual  partner  is  intense  in  the  anaesthetic 
and  hyperaesthetic  alike.  The  undersexed  is  made 
through  intercourse  to  realize  his  inferiority,  the 
oversexed  is  loath  to  be  dominated  by  his  desire. 
Hence  both  resent  woman  and  her  attraction.  The 
fear  of  woman,  the  impure,  the  temptress,  fills  the 
literature  of  puritanism. 

A  puritanical  judge  defined  obscenity  as  "what- 
ever might  arouse  a  libidinous  passion  in  the  mind 
of  a  modest  woman."  John  S.  Sumner  said  of 
Dreiser's  "The  Genius,"  that  he  looked  at  it  "from 
the  standpoint  of  its  harmful  effects  on  female  read- 
ers of  immature  minds." 

The  Rev.  John  Roach  Straton  discussing  spiritual- 

[257] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


ism  stated  that  women  are  the  associates  of  the 
devil,  constantly  in  league  with  him  to  lead  men 
to  perdition  and  adduced  as  evidence  the  fact  that 
the  majority  of  mediums  are  women. 

The  puritan  is  not  satisfied  with  suppressing  ob- 
vious "evils";  he  must  uncover  hidden  evils  and, 
at  times,  his  eagerness  to  catch  sinners  gives  the 
impression  that  he  is  somewhat  of  a  voyeur. 

Clergymen  who  could  not  as  such  attend  "sug- 
gestive" shows,  drink  in  "gin  mills,"  consort  with 
cabaret  dancers  or  enter  "houses  of  ill  repute," 
can  indulge  in  all  those  diversions  provided  they 
assume  the  character  of  moral  crusaders. 

The  next  day  they  gratify  their  sadism  by  de- 
nouncing and  hauling  into  court  the  sinners  they 
previously  befriended. 

In  all  sexual  relations  there  is  a  survival  of  a 
primitive  craving  which  drives  one  of  the  sexual 
partners  to  overpower  the  other.  In  mammals  it 
is  generally  the  male  who  overpowers  the  female. 
Civilization  has  repressed  that  craving  in  a  large 
degree. 

In  neurotics,  however,  a  regression  takes  place 
which  enables  the  male  to  avenge  himself,  so  to 
speak,  upon  the  female,  for  her  domination,  by 
brutalizing  her.  It  generally  stops  at  disparage- 
ment, nagging  or  hatred,  but  in  certain  pervert 
[258] 


The  Puritans  Egotism 


cases  there  is  actual  violence  offered.  The  sav- 
age persecution  of  prostitutes  by  vice-fighters  (on 
one  occasion  driving  them  out  of  their  houses  and 
on  the  streets,  without  providing  any  shelter  or 
planning  any  measures  of  rescue),  points  to  primi- 
tive, barbaric  savagery  gratifying  itself  in  a  cow- 
ardly, neurotic  way. 

I  say  cowardly  because  such  exhibitions  of  vio- 
lence are  always  countenanced  by  the  mob.  Mil- 
lions of  inferior  persons  without  any  ability  in  any 
direction,  lacking  in  the  self-assertion  which  wealth 
might  give  them,  unable  to  force  their  way  into 
"exclusive  circles,"  are  prone  to  don  the  mantle 
of  moral  righteousness  in  order  to  acquire  without 
physical  or  mental  exertion  some  form  of  supe- 
riority. 

Neurotic  egotism  is  strong  in  puritans  who  are 
not  satisfied  with  saving  the  world  from  a  thousand 
imaginary  dangers  but  use  all  the  channels  of  pub- 
licity to  proclaim  their  achievements. 

Many  of  those  traits  were  exemplified  by  An- 
thony Comstock's  life  and  activities,  as  described 
by  his  official  biographer  C.  G.  Trumbull.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  rather  brutal  father  who  added  to 
his  cruelty  a  decided  refinement  of  the  perverse 
sort,  sending  the  lad  into  the  woods  to  cut  the 
switches  with  which  he  was  to  beat  him.  Little 

[259] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Anthony  was  in  the  habit  of  nicking  those  switches 
so  that  they  would  break  when  his  torturer  applied 
them  too  energetically.  The  reasons  for  those 
beatings  are  not  mentioned  but  another  paragraph 
of  the  official  biography  enables  us  to  venture  a 
guess. 

"Certain  things  that  were  brought  into  his  life 
in  those  boyhood  days  started  memories  and  lines 
of  temptation  that  were  harder  for  him  to  overcome 
than  anything  that  ever  came  into  his  life  in  later 
years." 

"He  knows  what  an  awful  and  lasting  poison 
is  the  poison  of  impurity.  Once  gaining  entry 
into  a  life,  through  book  or  story  or  picture,  it 
stays.  .  .  .  There  the  images  stay  to  be  called  up 
freely  and  used  at  will  by  the  Devil." 

In  other  words  he  probably  remained  all  his  life 
the  inflammable  boy  every  human  being  is  at  the 
time  of  puberty  and  having  lingered  at  that  child- 
like level,  was  convinced  that  all  mankind  was  as 
undeveloped,  as  easily  tortured  by  temptation  as  he 
was,  and  exposed  to  all  the  dangers  which  frighten 
the  hypererotic. 

Fanaticism  appeared  in  his  behaviour  at  an  early 
age.  At  eighteen  he  broke  into  a  saloon  and 
spilled  all  the  "liquor"  in  the  place.  When  he  en- 
listed he  would  not  only  refuse  to  drink  his  ration 
[260] 


Comstock's  Delusions 


of  whiskey  but  throw  it  out  on  the  ground  in  the 
presence  of  his  fellow  soldiers. 

Mustered  out  from  the  army  he  became  a  dry 
goods  clerk  in  New  York  City.  He  seems  to  have 
suffered  at  that  time  from  the  delusions  and  hal- 
lucinations which  are  frequently  observed  in  the 
sexually  abnormal  who  repress  their  cravings 
through  a  severe  struggle. 

"During  those  six  years  of  varied  business  ex- 
perience," his  biographer  writes,  "he  had  come  to 
know  young  business  men,  over  and  over  again, 
whose  lives  were  plainly  ruined  by  their  interest 
in  the  obscene  pictures  and  literature  and  other 
devilish  things  that  they  had  easy  access  to.  ... 
In  his  close  contact  with  the  young  business  men  of 
the  city,  he  saw  them  falling  about  him  almost  like 
autumn  leaves,  withered  at  the  blighting  touch  of 
the  obscenities  that  were  the  staple  of  so  much 
commercialized  traffic." 

Every  analyst  has  met  the  syphilophobiac  who 
attributes  everybody's  sickness,  misfortune  or 
death  to  venereal  disease,  or  the  unconscious  homo- 
sexual who  in  every  gesture  which  another  man 
makes,  sees  an  improper  advance. 

Comstock's  megalomania  revealed  itself  in  his 
constant  reiteration  of  his  belief  that  God  was  guid- 
ing every  one  of  his  actions;  he  even  had  auditory 

[261] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


hallucinations  in  which  a  voice  told  him  where  to 
go  to  find  obscene  objects. 

In  other  words,  a  pitiable  type,  fit  to  be  treated 
by  psychiatrists  and  not  to  be  entrusted  with  the  cen- 
sorship of  a  nation's  morals. 

The  society  he  founded  displays  on  every  occa- 
sion the  neurotic  craving  for  power  which  only  an- 
noys but  never  helps,  which  punishes  but  never 
offers  a  constructive  suggestion  for  reclaiming  cul- 
prits. 

The  desire  for  suprahuman  powers,  for  the  ac- 
quisition of  a  privileged  situation  in  the  community 
has  always  characterized  sexual  puritanism  from 
its  beginnings.  In  ancient  religions,  men  or 
women  mentally  upset  by  sexual  privation,  priests 
and  priestesses  of  various  cults,  were  credited  with 
superhuman  wisdom  and  their  hysterical  ravings 
called  oracles. 

Several  religions  have  imposed  celibacy  upon 
their  priests  in  the  belief  that  such  a  condition 
would  enable  them  to  rise  to  a  higher  spiritual 
plane.  When  certain  churches  began  to  lose  their 
intellectual  leadership  they  established  puritanical 
restrictions  in  order  to  conquer  some  form  of  moral 
leadership. 

In  our  days  this  procedure  is  very  evident  in  the 
antics  of  a  Billy  Sunday  or  a  John  Roach  Straton 
[262] 


Puritans  and  Exploiters 


who,  lacking  totally  in  any  ideas,  resort  to  vitupera- 
tion and  lavish  anathemas  on  "sinners."  If  those 
neurotics  could  not  rise  in  indignation  at  the  thought 
of  the  low  gowns  and  silk  stockings  worn  by  young 
women  they  would  have  to  remain  silent. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  alliance  of  puri- 
tanism  with  religion  is  looked  on  favourably  by 
those  who  prefer  to  see  the  masses  interest  them- 
selves in  a  future  life.  The  exploiter  of  labour 
and  the  profiteer  approve  of  Christianlike  resigna- 
tion and  of  the  acceptance  of  our  trials  on  this 
earth. 

Thus  puritanism  secures  the  support  of  all  the 
large  business  interests  and  becomes  well  nigh  ir- 
resistible. 

The  shallow  point  of  view  of  organized  puritan- 
ism  is  revealed  clearly  in  a  letter  from  John  S. 
Sumner  to  the  writer,  dated  April  9,  1920.  "The 
influence  exerted  by  such  publications,  many  mov- 
ing pictures  and  many  dramatic  productions,  di- 
rectly harmfully  affects  family  relations  and  the 
home  which  is  the  basis  of  our  social  order.  We 
feel,  therefore,  that  we  are  doing  a  fundamental 
service  in  seeking  to  suppress  those  things  which 
would  destroy  the  basis  of  our  social  order." 

At  a  time  when  unpardonable  increases  in 
rentals,  in  the  cost  of  food  and  clothing  are  making 

[263] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


it  impossible  for  family  men  to  retain  their  homes, 
Mr.  Sumner  boasts  of  protecting  them  against 
vicious  publications,  lewd  shows  and  movies.  Sex- 
ual obsession  could  not  be  confessed  more  frankly. 

Puritanism,  be  it  of  the  undersexed  or  of  the 
oversexed  sort,  kills  all  art  manifestations.  Art  is 
expression,  not  repression,  and  curiously  enough, 
even  some  of  the  freer  minds  among  the  art  critics 
are  yielding  to  the  puritanical  pressure  and,  now 
and  then,  praise  an  actor,  a  painter  or  a  sculptor 
for  his  "power  of  repression." 

Not  only  the  pictorial  arts  and  literature  have 
been  stifled  in  puritan-ridden  lands  but  music  even 
has  been  neglected. 

Remember  the  absurd  statements  may  by  Tolstoy, 
who  was  tortured  by  sexual  obsessions  and  dis- 
covered lewdness  even  in  Beethoven's  compositions. 
Few  conductors  and  even  fewer  orchestra  musicians 
hail  from  puritan  lands.  Whatever  symphonic 
compositions  such  lands  have  produced  could  be 
all  ignored  in  a  survey  of  the  world's  musical 
achievements. 

Puritans,  however,  are  looking  forward  to  con- 
quests in  new  territories,  some  of  which  had  never 
before  been  invaded  by  lay  authorities. 

The  March,  1920,  issue  of  the  report  of  the  New 
York  Society  for  the  Suppression  of  Vice  contains 
[264] 


Destructive  Persecution 


two  especially  distressing  items:  an  announcement 
that  a  medical  publication  has  submitted  an  article 
for  revision  by  the  society;  this  would  indicate 
that  unless  powerful  opposition  is  raised  against 
such  attempts,  science  is  to  become  "bowdlerized," 
which  probably  means  that  at  some  future  time 
venereal  clinics  will  be  abolished  and  operations 
on  the  abdomen  re-christened  operations  on  the 
stomach. 

Finally  the  society  having  hauled  into  court  some 
offender  who  was  let  off  with  a  suspended  sen- 
tence, "warned  the  offender  to  leave  town." 

This  is  destructive  persecution  of  the  worst  type, 
lacking  in  social  intelligence,  dumping  perverts 
or  criminals  upon  other  communities,  getting  rid 
of  a  disease  by  trying  to  let  the  neighbour  catch 
it,  as  savages,  with  the  help  of  witches,  are  wont  to 
do. 

The  puritan  neurosis  will  probably  pass  away 
when  the  forces  which  support  it  have  been  fettered 
and  made  harmless  and  when  the  forces  which 
carry  out  its  decrees,  courts  and  police,  having  been 
reformed,  will  no  longer  need  to  hide  their  moral 
and  ethical  inferiority  under  the  mask  of  sexual 
austerity. 


[265] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  official  biography  of  Anthony  Comstock  "An- 
thony Comstock,  Fighter,"  by  C.  G.  Trumbull  (Flem- 
ing, Revell)  is  the  best  source  of  information  as  to  the 
workings  of  the  puritanical  mind.  T.  Schroeder  in  his 
"Free  Press  Anthology,"  C.  Pollock  in  the  Bulletin  of  the 
Authors'  League  of  America  for  March,  1917,  H.  L. 
Mencken  in  his  "A  Book  of  Prefaces"  (Alfred  A.  Knoff), 
and  Frank  Harris  in  Pearson's  Magazine  for  June,  1917, 
cite  innumerable  cases  of  puritanical  suppression  of  free 
thought  and  free  expression  in  literature  and  art.  Also 
consult  the  Monthly  Report  of  the  New  York  Society 
for  the  Suppression  of  Vice  which  is  a  record  of  the 
"lawful"  activities  of  the  organized  puritans. 


[266] 


VI.  THE  PSYCHOANALYTIC  TREATMENT 


CHAPTER  I.  HYPNOTIST  AND  ANALYST 

"I  suppose  suggestion  plays  a  great  part  in  the 
psychoanalytic  treatment,"  is  a  statement  which 
every  analyst  hears  frequently  and  has  to  deny  em- 
phatically. Hypnotism  and  psychoanalysis  not 
only  have  nothing  in  common  but  are  in  fact  the  ex- 
act opposite  of  each  other:  hypnotism  introduces 
something  into  the  subject's  mind,  psychoanalysis 
takes  something  out  of  it. 

The  hypnotist  takes  certain  ready-made  ideas, 
generally  considered  as  ethical  or  practical,  and, 
taking  chances  with  their  acceptability,  tries  to 
make  the  subject  accept  them  because  they  are 
likely  to  be  beneficial  to  him. 

The  psychoanalyst,  having  slowly  and  carefully 
amassed  evidence  as  to  certain  ideas  which  are  ob- 
sessing the  subject  and  are  likely  to  wreck  his 
health,  proceeds  to  disintegrate  them  and  helps  the 
subject  to  eliminate  them. 

The  charge  often  made  by  ill-informed  oppo- 
nents of  psychoanalysis,  among  them  Boris  Sidis, 
that  people  may  be  wrecked  and  perverted  by  the 
sexual  thoughts  suggested  in  the  course  of  an 

[269] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


analysis,  reveals  a  profound  ignorance  of  the  psy- 
choanalytic procedure. 

The  Freudian  school  is  the  only  one  to  lay  much 
emphasis  on  the  sexual  element,  but  the  orthodox 
Freudian  is  an  almost  extinct  species.  Even  he, 
however,  should  be  cleared  of  every  suspicion  of 
sexual  suggestion.  The  sexual  material  is  present 
in  every  subject,  normal  or  abnormal,  and  comes 
to  the  surface  very  easily.  No  suggestion  is  neces- 
sary to  bring  it  forth. 

The  Freudians  consider  sex  as  the  all-important 
factor  in  the  neurosis.  The  other  schools  are  in- 
clined to  seek,  behind  the  sexual  mask,  other  fac- 
tors assuming  a  sexual  complexion  for  abnormal 
reasons.  Adler  has  stated  many  times  that  imag- 
inary sexuality  deceives  the  subject  but  should 
not  deceive  the  analyst.  If  an  analyst  of  the  Ad- 
lerian  school  ever  tried  to  suggest  anything  to  his 
subjects  it  would  be  the  belief  that  sex  is  not  al- 
ways sex. 

But  no  analyst  ever  suggests  anything.  As  we 
shall  see  at  the  end  of  this  chapter,  as  soon  as  the 
rapport  between  analyst  and  subject  is  such  that 
the  subject  is  too  easily  influenced  by  the  analyst, 
the  analysis  is  likely  to  prove  a  failure. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  the  widely  spread  belief 
that  hypnotism  and  psychoanalysis  are  related 
[270] 


What  Discouraged  Jung 


methods  of  treatment  is  the  fact  that  several  of  the 
best-known  analysts  originally  practised  hypno- 
tism. 

It  was  while  studying  a  patient  in  hypnotic 
"trances"  that  Freud  suspected  the  possibility  of 
a  study  of  the  unconscious  in  the  waking  state. 
Freud  made  a  deep  study  of  hypnotism  under  men 
like  Charcot  of  the  Salpetriere  and  Bernheim  and 
Liebault  of  Nancy.  He  soon  realized,  however, 
the  shortcomings  of  the  hypnotic  method  and  dis- 
carded it  entirely. 

Jung,  of  Zurich,  was  discouraged  from  using 
hynotism  by  the  brilliant  and  spurious  successes 
he  achieved  through  it.  An  old  woman  among 
others  who  would  call  at  his  office  complaining  of 
some  excruciating  pains,  fall  asleep  in  three  sec- 
onds and  before  he  had  time  to  even  suggest  any- 
thing, wake  up,  thank  him  and  go  away,  convinced 
him  that  the  hypnotist  is  simply  aiding  and  abetting 
an  unconscious  fraud. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  if  Freud,  Jung,  Fer- 
enczi  and  the  many  others  who  started  in  life  as 
hypnotists  and,  after  a  while,  became  psychoana- 
lysts, had  not  become  familiar  with  the  psychology 
of  suggested  sleep,  they  would  have  been  at  pains 
to  understand  the  mechanism  of  certain  neuroses. 

All  students  of  psychoanalysis  should  glance  at 

[271] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


a  few  books  on  hypnotism  for  that  very  reason. 
It  would  enable  them  to  convince  themselves  of 
the  neurotic  character  of  that  practice. 

There  are,  briefly  speaking,  three  methods  of 
hypnotizing  people:  A  man  of  powerful  physique 
and  of  impressive  appearance  often  succeeds  in 
hypnotizing  subjects  by  ordering  them  in  a  stern 
voice  to  fall  asleep.  This  method  is  especially  ef- 
fective with  weak,  timid,  feminine  subjects.  Some 
memory  of  the  father's  authority  is  evidently  at 
work  in  such  cases  and  compels  obedience. 

Other  subjects  can  only  be  prevailed  to  enter 
the  hypnotic  state  in  a  quiet,  dimly  lighted  room, 
when  the  hypnotist  keeps  up  a  flow  of  soothing, 
monotonous,  often  senseless  words,  spoken  in  a 
low,  crooning  voice  and  strokes  the  face  and  hands 
of  the  subject.  This  is  the  method  employed  by 
every  mother  singing  her  infant  to  sleep  and  sur- 
rounding him  with  a  peace  and  monotony  symbol- 
ical of  absolute  security. 

Nervous  fatigue  is  relied  upon  in  other  cases  to 
induce  artificial  sleep,  the  subject  being  asked  to 
concentrate  his  gaze  on  a  brilliant  object,  such  as 
a  diamond  held  in  one  position  or  moved  about,  or 
to  listen  to  the  ticking  of  a  watch,  etc. 

Between  ten  and  twenty  per  cent,  of  all  the  sub- 
jects examined  have  been  found  impossible  to  hyp- 
[272] 


Regression  in  Hypnose 


notize.  No  conclusion  should  be  drawn  from  that 
condition  as  to  their  normality.  They  may  be  so 
normal  and  independent  that  the  idea  of  submitting 
to  any  one  else's  will  is  repellent  to  them.  They 
may  be  so  abnormal  that  their  refusal  to  be  hypno- 
tized is  a  desperate  resistance  against  the  prac- 
titioner endeavouring  to  cure  their  neurotic  symp- 
toms. 

That  the  hypnotic  condition  verges  on  a  neurose 
is  made  evident  by  several  of  its  characteristics. 

The  fact  that  it  can  be  best  induced  in  certain 
cases  by  a  man  of  the  Svengali  type  and  that  fakers 
have  better  percentages  of  success  than  scientific 
experimenters  points  to  a  childish  regression  and 
a  father  fixation.  The  mother  fixation  may  explain 
satisfactorily  the  second  method. 

The  regression  is  shown  in  many  cases  by  the 
childhood  memories  which  constitute  the  woof  of 
the  subject's  talk  unless  the  hypnotist  imposes  by 
suggestion  a  different  topic. 

All  consciousness  of  time  generally  disappears 
in  hypnosis  and  the  abolition  of  time  seems  to 
cause  the  subject  a  great  deal  qf  satisfaction.  This 
reminds  us  of  the  epileptic  fits  so  well  described 
by  Dostoyevsky  and  in  the  c&urse  of  which  Mishkin, 
the  Idiot,  exulted  in  the  thought  that  there  would 
be  no  more  time  limitations 

[273] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  majority  of  hypnotized  subjects  have  a  feel- 
ing of  pressure  all  over  their  body  which  is  a  source 
of  most  pleasurable  feelings. 

The  Freudians  have  come  to  the  plausible  con- 
clusion that  this  is  a  memory  from  the  pre- 
natal days  when  the  fetus  was  submitted  in  the 
mother's  womb  to  an  even  pressure  of  similar 
character. 

Many  more  points  of  similarity  between  neu- 
rotic and  hypnotic  states  could  be  mentioned. 
Every  neurose  is  a  form  of  auto-suggestion.  The 
subject  imagines  he  has  a  large  amount  of  evidence 
for  certain  obsessive  thoughts  and  beliefs.  At  the 
end  of  an  analysis,  the  evidence  has  been  disin- 
tegrated and  destroyed.  The  hypnotized  subject 
who  carries  out  some  command  given  by  the  hyp- 
notist will,  if  questioned,  present  excellent  and 
plausible  reasons  for  performing  actions  he  cannot 
help  performing.  After  being  assisted  in  remem- 
bering the  beginnings  of  the  hypnotic  scene,  how- 
ever, he  will  gradually  regain  his  consciousness  of 
all  that  transpired  and  realize  that  his  "reasons" 
were  an  unconscious  fabrication. 

Just  as  a  neurose  creates  physical  symptoms 
through  auto-suggestion,  Charcot  and  the  Nancy 
hypnotists  have  shown  that  almost  any  hysterical 
symptom  can  be  induced  under  hypnose  and  a  com- 
[274] 


Another  Escape  from  Reality 


parison  of  the  two  processes  is  extremely  illum- 
inating. 

In  acute  neurotic  cases  there  is  even  a  form  of 
refusal  to  be  analysed  which  can  be  compared  to 
the  refusal  to  be  hypnotized. 

It  happens  sometimes,  in  the  course  of  an  analy- 
sis, that  when  the  examination  reaches  a  crucial 
point,  the  subject  develops  a  physical  ailment  which 
for  the  time  being  or  for  a  more  or  less  extended 
period  of  time  places  him  beyond  the  analyst's 
reach. 

A  subject  may  feel  suddenly  distressed  and  ask 
for  permission  to  leave  the  room,  or  the  appoint- 
ments are  postponed  on  account  of  some  gastric  or 
abdominal  disturbance  unconsciously  improvised 
for  the  occasion. 

Shall  we  then  attempt  to  relieve  neurotic  symp- 
toms through  a  procedure  which  affects  so  many 
neurotic  traits? 

The  neurotic  who  consults  a  hypnotist  is,  after 
all,  seeking  a  quick  escape  from  reality,  from 
effort,  from  responsibilities. 

He  sees  in  the  practitioner  treating  him.  the  parent 
image  and  "runs  back  to  father  or  mother"  re- 
gressing to  the  age  at  which  he  had  all  his  problems 
solved  and  the  responsibility  never  weighed  very 
heavily  on  his  shoulders.  He  seeks  the  line  of 

[275] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


least  effort.  Too  often  an  analyst  has  the  impres- 
sion brought  to  bear  forcibly  on  him  that  the  sub- 
ject places  himself  in  his  hands  and  will  hold  him 
responsible  henceforth  for  all  the  acts  of  his  life. 

Unable  to  lean  upon  his  parents  any  longer  the 
neurotic  seeks  a  substitute  for  them. 

Physician  and  analyst  must  see  at  once  through 
the  threadbare  schemes  of  the  subject  and  not  en- 
courage that  attitude.  They  must  bend  all  their 
energies  to  one  end,  to  making  the  patient  entirely 
independent  from  them. 

Take  one  subject  who  feels  weak  and  easily  tired 
and  hence  unable  to  perform  certain  necessary  and 
unpleasant  tasks. 

The  hypnotist  will  repeat  to  him  during  each 
"trance"  'that  he  is  strong,  strong  enough  to  do  his 
work. 

But  the  weak  patient  is  weakened  by  complexes 
which  hypnosis  does  not  remove.  Hence  the  prob- 
ability is  that  after  that  form  of  treatment  the  pa- 
tient, unable  to  really  feel  strong,  because  he  is  not 
strong,  will  adopt  one  of  the  negative  attitudes  I 
have  described  in  a  previous  chapter,  "I  will  act 
as  though  I  were  strong,"  after  which  he  will  en- 
gage, according  to  his  temperament,  in  boasting  or 
disparaging,  bullying  or  scheming,  to  prove  his  in- 
existent  strength  to  himself  and  others.  He  may 
[276] 


A  Waste  of  Energy 


enter  a  slightly  agitated  maniac  state,  followed  by 
the  inevitable  reaction,  depression. 

Many  serious  experimenters  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  we  cannot  suggest  anything  to  a 
subject  unless  he  unconsciously  craves  to  do  that 
very  thing.  Suggestions  of  unpleasant  actions  are 
either  rejected  or  very  ephemeral.  Suggesting 
murder  or  suicide  proves  effective  mainly  in  the 
movies.  Lombroso  saw  his  subjects  wake  up  every 
time  he  ordered  them  to  perform  humiliating  tasks 
or  to  assume  degrading  roles. 

Our  ethical  and  social  notions,  our  prejudices 
and  fears  dominate  the  hypnotic  state  as  they  do  the 
waking  state. 

Not  only  is  the  hypnotic  method  dangerous  for 
it  encourages  forms  of  regression  which  are  the 
basis  of  the  neuroses,  but  it  is  an  inefficient  and 
haphazard  procedure. 

How  can  we  know  what  suggestion  will  be  ac- 
ceptable to  the  subject  because  unconsciously  he  has 
already  accustomed  himself  to  it  and  is  expecting 
it?  Must  we  make  hundreds  of  experiments,  each 
of  which  weakens  the  patient's  will  a  little  more,  in 
order  to  strike  by  mere  chance  a  suggestion  which 
will  be  both  beneficial  and  acceptable,  hence  dur- 
able? 

This  applies  not  only  to  the  form  of  hypnotism 

[277] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


which  implies  suggestions  from  hypnotist  to  sub- 
ject but  to  the  hypnotic  rest  cure  devised  by  Wetter- 
strand  of  Upsal.  Wetterstrand  simply  put  his  pa- 
tients asleep  and  kept  them  in  that  condition,  some- 
times for  days  and  weeks,  in  a  house  especially 
fitted  for  that  purpose. 

Sleepless  subjects  must  have  derived  some  com- 
fort from  that  treatment,  granted,  however,  that  they 
were  not,  in  the  course  of  that  hypnotic  sleep,  tor- 
tured and  weakened  by  anxiety  dreams,  one  thing 
which  could  not  be  prevented  or  checked.  To  the 
average  neurotic,  on  the  other  hand,  that  protracted 
drowsiness  must  have  offered  a  dangerous  means  of 
escape  from  the  reality  which  they  should  have  been 
trained  to  face. 

In  the  course  of  an  analysis,  the  analyst,  as  I  said 
before,  is  most  careful  not  to  offer  any  suggestions, 
for  suggestions  would  be  accepted  by  friendly  sub- 
jects in  order  to  please  the  analyst,  and  by  hostile 
subjects  to  get  rid  of  the  analyst. 

When  asking  the  subject  for  his  reactions  to  the 
various  stimulus  words  used  for  that  purpose,  the 
analyst  simply  asks  the  impersonal  question:  what 
comes  to  your  mind  when  you  hear  this  word? 

He  avoids  forms  of  examination  which  would 
practically  dictate  the  proper  answer  to  the  patient, 
such  as:     Does  not  this  remind  you  of  ,  ,  ,  ? 
[278] 


The  Bald  Hair  Specialist 


He  listens  carefully,  patiently,  uncritically 
though  sympathetically. 

He  may  have  certain  theories  as  to  the  subject's 
trouble,  its  cause,  origin,  character,  etc.,  but  he 
never  airs  them  before  the  subject. 

It  may  be  objected  that  a  certain  amount  of  in- 
voluntary suggestion  is  quite  unavoidable.  The 
element  designed  unscientifically  as  personal  mag- 
netism plays  in  all  human  relations  a  part  which 
cannot  be  minimized. 

A  letter  to  a  daily  paper  which  publishes  health 
advice  by  a  very  bald  physician  revealed  in  an 
amusing  way  the  illogical  effects  of  personal  im- 
pressions. The  correspondent  was  anxious  to  find 
a  tonic  for  his  rapidly  thinning  hair,  but  wished  to 
have  his  inquiry  referred  to  another  physician  than 
Dr.  X,  for  the  latter's  denuded  skull  made  him  in 
his  estimation  unfit  to  prescribe  for  his  trouble. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  man  affected  by  calvities 
is  more  likely  to  have  investigated  hair  restorers 
than  a  man  with  a  healthy  shock  of  hair,  but  the 
person  who  wrote  the  letter  I  mentioned  felt  that 
in  such  matters  he  could  not  trust  a  bald  phy- 
sician. 

An  athletic  physical  instructor  will  easily  im- 
press his  pupils  with  the  probable  excellence  of  his 
method  and  an  analyst  who  seems  unlikely  to  ever 

[279] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


be  affected  by  any  nervous  ailments  will  create  in 
his  subject's  mind  a  confidence  which  facilitates  his 
work. 

Jung  says  very  frankly  somewhere  that  practi- 
tioners who  manage  to  invest  themselves  with  the 
halo  of  the  medicine  man  are  wise  in  every  respect. 
Not  only  do  they  have  a  large  practice  but  they 
also  obtain  the  best  results.  Dealing  with  neu- 
rotics, the  medical  exorcist  shows  to  his  subjects  his 
full  valuation  of  the  "psychic"  element  when  he 
gives  them  an  opportunity  to  fasten  their  faith  to 
his  mysterious  personality. 

That  type  of  healer  generally  has  a  large  prac- 
tice but  I  disagree  with  Jung  as  to  the  final,  not 
the  temporary,  results  of  such  cures. 

Emotional  cures  have  been  observed  in  thou- 
sands of  cases,  but  they  are  seldom  lasting,  for  they 
eliminate  the  symptoms,  not  the  deeper  factors 
causing  the  symptoms  to  appear. 

Powdering  up  a  red  nose  will  have  strikingly 
good  temporary  effects  but  the  only  way  to  deal 
with  that  sympton  is  to  cure  the  gastric  disturbance 
which  is  responsible  for  it. 

Analysis  does  not  powder  up  red  noses.  It  seeks 
to  determine  the  line  of  least  resistance  for  the  de- 
velopment of  a  harmonious  personality.  It  tries 
to  find  out  what  the  neurotic's  unconscious  is  striv- 
[280] 


Talking  Cures 

ing  for  and  actually  doing  in  an  abnormal  way. 
After  destroying  the  absurd  reasons  which  the 
neurotic  advances  for  his  abnormal  behaviour,  it 
tries  to  determine  in  collaboration  with  the  subject 
himself  a  positive,  vital,  socially  beneficial  guid- 
ing line. 

But  it  does  not  begin  to  seek  that  guiding  line 
until  the  subject  has  been  made  entirely  free  from 
his  complexes. 

And  here  again  we  must  establish  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  psychoanalysis  and  the  talking 
cures  made  popular,  especially  in  Europe,  by  the 
late  Dr.  Dubois,  and  which  is  little  more  than  an  at- 
tempt at  suggestion  in  the  waking  state. 

Dubois'  system  of  therapy,  which  consists  in  giv- 
ing to  the  subject  moral  reasons  for  his  recovery 
and  in  discussing  rationally  his  case,  is  temporarily 
efficient  if  the  subject  is  deeply  impressed  with  the 
practitioner's  personality  and  is  ready  to  yield  to 
his  arguments. 

The  Dubois  method  bans  all  conversation  about 
the  past  and  tries  on  every  occasion  to  turn  the  sub- 
ject's glance  toward  the  future,  which  psycho- 
logically is  correct,  for  the  neurosis  is  a  regression 
to  the  past  and  to  outworn  solutions. 

That  procedure  is  really  the  second  part  of  the 
psychoanalytic  treatment.  But  the  first  part  of  it 

[281] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


cannot  be  skipped.  Before  erecting  a  building  one 
must  clear  the  ground  of  all  obstructions  and  blast 
the  rocks  which  stand  in  the  way. 

Conscious  advice  is  very  weak  against  the  posi- 
tive orders  which  come  from  our  unconscious,  and 
here  again,  as  in  the  case  of  hypnotic  commands, 
only  that  sort  of  advice  for  which  the  unconscious 
is  prepared  will  find  ready  acceptance  and  be  per- 
manently followed. 

Complex  after  complex  must  be  disintegrated 
and  the  subject  must  first  be  made  conscious  that 
most  of  his  unconscious  cravings  are  not  repre- 
sentative of  the  intellectual,  social  and  ethical  level 
on  which  he  should  stand  but  survivals  of,  or  re- 
gressions to,  conditions  obtaining  at  lower,  that  is, 
more  archaic  levels. 

Some  of  his  unconscious  cravings  will  be  found 
to  lead  him  along  a  straight,  positive,  path.  His 
dreams  prove  especially  valuable  in  determining 
what  his  aptitudes  are  as  well  as  his  abnormal  modes 
of  wishfulfilment. 

The  task  of  the  analyst,  after  he  has  freed  the 
subject  from  his  thraldom  to  an  archaic  uncon- 
scious, is  to  select  in  an  unprejudiced  way  from 
all  the  unconscious  material  brought  to  the  surface 
that  which  is  positive,  which  shows  beneficial  adap- 
tability to  the  subject's  environment,  which  is  cap- 
[282] 


Latent  Ability 

able  of  gratifying  in  a  socially  useful  way  the 
various  urges  struggling  for  expression. 

Both  in  the  clearing  of  the  ground  and  in  the 
building  of  the  new  structure,  the  analyst  proceeds 
scientifically,  according  to  convincing  evidential 
data. 

Both  reactions  and  dreams  show  him  what  the 
subject  can  actually  do  and  is  predisposed  to  do, 
what  actual  help  and  hindrance  the  subject  may 
derive  from  his  unconscious;  dreams,  in  par- 
ticular, registering  minutely  as  they  do,  the  sub- 
ject's progress  in  regaining  his  freedom,  reveal  ac- 
curately the  time  when  advice  touching  a  positive 
guiding  line  can  be  given  openly. 

If  you  have  to  deal  for  instance  with  a  subject  in 
whom  the  egotistical  trend  is  strongly  marked,  you 
must  at  first  disintegrate  the  false  growths  whereby 
his  craving  expresses  itself  indirectly  and  ab- 
normally. After  which,  when  the  subject  has  ac- 
quired full  insight  into  his  conduct  and  is  re-shap- 
ing his  attitudes  accordingly,  the  analyst  can  en- 
courage certain  forms  of  activity  offering  positive 
gratification  to  the  subject's  egotism  and  yet  fitting 
perfectly  in  the  environment  in  which  he  must  live. 

A  neurotic  with  a  decided  talent  in  some  direc- 
tion can  be  led  from  a  negative  life  of  disparage- 
ment, slander,  bitterness,  in  which  he  is  only  re- 

[283] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


ducing  others  to  a  lower  level,  to  a  positive  life  of 
accomplishment,  in  which  a  development  of  his 
abilities  will  gain  him  fame  and  power. 

In  other  words,  hypnotism  only  offers  to  sufferers 
a  negative  escape  from  reality,  psychoanalysis  a 
permanent  formula  for  exchanging  a  negative  life 
for  a  positive  one;  hypnotism  makes  sufferers  de- 
pendent upon  the  hypnotist,  psychoanalysis  makes 
them  independent  from  the  analyst. 

And  yet,  there  imay  be  exceptional  cases  in  which 
hypnotism  may  be  used  legitimately.  While  no 
physician  believes  in  administering  strong  narcotics, 
no  physician  will  hesitate  to  inject  large  doses 
of  morphine  into  an  unfortunate  person  who  is,  let 
us  say,  being  crushed  to  death  under  a  railroad 
train  and  cannot  be  lifted  from  under  the  wheels 
until  emergency  apparatus  has  come. 

In  a  case,  for  instance,  when  a  neurotic  is  in- 
capacitated by  some  of  his  symptoms,  such  as 
a  sick  headache,  from  performing  some  im- 
portant task  upon  which  his  livelihood  or  reputa- 
tion depends,  an  analyst  would  have  a  sufficient  ex- 
cuse for  saving  his  subject  from  the  added  strain 
which  might  be  caused  by  failure.  But  that  form 
of  treatment  should  only  be  resorted  to  in  a  grave 
emergency  with  the  understanding  that  the  pro- 
cedure shall  not  be  repeated.  For  the  majority  of 
[284] 


Sleep  or  Talk 

neurotics  would  rather  sleep  than  talk  and  would 
rather  regress  to  their  abnormal  ideas  than  to  sub- 
mit them  to  the  destructive  fire  of  psychoanalytic 
conversation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  most  authoritative  book  on  the  subject  is  Smith 
Ely  Jelliffe's  "The  Technique  of  Psychoanalysis"  (Nerv- 
ous and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co.) ,  a  volume  of  160  pages 
covering  the  following  points:  Material  to  be  analysed; 
whom  to  analyse;  the  literature,  sources  and  history  of 
psychoanalysis;  the  analytic  procedure;  the  Oedipus 
complex  as  a  psychological  measuring  unit;  the  trans- 
ference; the  resistances;  the  overcoming  of  the  conflicts; 
the  socialization  of  the  personality;  the  practical  use 
of  the  patients'  dreams  in  analysis,  etc. 

Poul  Bjerre's  "The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Psycho- 
analysis" contains  many  practical  suggestions  and  illus- 
trations of  the  analytical  procedure. 


[285] 


VII.    THE  FOUR  SCHOOLS  OF 
PSYCHOANALYSIS 


CHAPTER  1:     FREUD.     THE  PIONEER 

There  are  few  orthodox  Freudians  at  the  present 
day.  Few  analysts  accept  all  the  conclusions  which 
the  creator  of  psychoanalysis  reached,  but  all  of 
them  without  any  exception  accept  his  premises. 
There  is  a  psychoanalytic  point  of  view  which  is 
common  to  the  four  principal  exponents  of  the  sci- 
ence, Freud,  Jung,  Adler  and  Kempf. 

I  have  told  elsewhere  how  Freud  gradually  came 
to  that  point  of  view,  discarding  many  of  his  earlier 
theories  as  new  evidence  compelled  this  most  con- 
scious and  modest  of  scientists  to  revise  his  own 
findings. 

This  chapter  will  be  devoted  to  a  brief  exposition 
of  the  Freudian  theories.  In  the  chapters  devoted 
to  Jung,  Adler  and  Kempf,  I  shall  endeavour  to 
bring  out  further  details  of  it  by  showing  to  what 
extent  these  scientists  disagree  with  the  great 
pioneer. 

The  Freudian  point  of  view  is  presented  prin- 
cipally in  three  of  Freud's  books,  the  "Three  Con- 
tributions to  the  Sexual  Theory,"  the  "Psycho- 
pathology  of  Every  Day  Life"  and  the  "Interpre- 

[289] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


tation  of  Dreams."  The  lectures  he  delivered  at 
Clark  University  when  he  visited  the  United  States 
and  his  "Introduction  to  Psychoanalysis"  supply 
laymen  with  a  clear  and  intelligible  summary  of  his 
theories. 

Freud  considers  that  a  study  of  dreams  is  the 
surest  way  to  penetrate  man's  unconscious.  The 
dreams  of  children  are  very  easily  understood: 
they  are  invariably  the  fulfilment  of  wishes  which 
were  aroused  in  children  during  the  day  and  were 
not  satisfied.  The  dreams  of  adults  present  more 
difficulties.  They  undergo  a  process  of  distortion, 
of  disguise.  The  idea  which  underlies  them  was 
meant  for  a  quite  different  verbal  expression. 

The  manifest  dream  content  is  a  disguised  sub- 
stitute for  the  unconscious  dream  thoughts,  and  this 
disguise  is  the  work  of  the  defensive  forces  of  the 
ego,  of  the  resistances. 

These  prevent  the  repressed  wishes  from  enter- 
ing the  consciousness  in  our  waking  hours,  and  even 
in  the  relaxation  of  sleep,  they  are  still  strong 
enough  to  force  them  to  hide  themselves  under  a 
mask,  to  don  a  symbolical  disguise. 

By  studying  the  irruptive  ideas  which  arise 
through  free  association,  we  can  discover  the  ac- 
tual dream  thoughts. 

They  are  no  longer  incomprehensible;  they  are 
[290] 


Wish  Fulfilment  in  Dreams 


associated  with  the  impressions  of  the  day  preced- 
ing the  dream  and  appear  as  the  fulfilment  of  un- 
gratified  wishes. 

The  manifest  dream  which  we  remember  after 
waking  jnay  then  be  described  as  the  disguised  ful- 
filment of  repressed  wishes. 

The  analysis  of  dreams  reveals,  according  to 
Freud,  the  unsuspected  importance  which  impres- 
sions and  experiences  from  early  childhood  exert 
on  human  beings.  In  the  dream  life  of  the  adult, 
the  child  continues  to  live  and  retain  all  the  traits 
and  wishes  he  ever  had,  even  those  which  he  was 
obliged  to  abandon  in  later  years.  Dream  study 
enables  one  to  realize  through  what  complicated 
processes  of  development,  repression,  sublimation 
and  reaction  the  normal  adult  has  gradually  grown 
out  of  the  child. 

Anxiety  dreams  do  not  invalidate  the  theory  of 
wish  fulfilment,  for  anxiety  is  one  of  the  ways  in 
which  the  ego  relieves  itself  of  repressed  wishes 
which  have  become  too  strong  and,  therefore,  anx- 
iety can  easily  be  experienced  if  the  dream  has 
gone  too  far  toward  the  fulfilment  of  an  objection- 
able wish. 

Faulty  actions  are  another  class  of  phenomena 
which  throw  much  light  upon  the  workings  of  our 
unconscious.  The  forgetting  of  things  which  one 

[291] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


is  supposed  to  know,  like  proper  names,  in 
certain  cases,  slips  of  the  tongue,  mistakes  in 
writing  or  reading,  the  automatic  execution  of  pur- 
posive acts  in  wrong  situations,  the  loss  or  break- 
ing of  certain  objects,  all  these  are  trifles  for  which 
no  one  before  Freud  had  sought  a  psychological 
explanation  and  which  had  always  been  considered 
as  the  consequences  of  absent-mindedness,  inatten- 
tion, etc. 

This  should  also  include  actions  and  gestures 
which  the  subject  performs  unknowingly,  such  as 
playing  with  objects  (buttons,  pencils),  humming 
melodies,  handling  one's  person  or  clothing  and  the 
like. 

These  insignificant  actions  are  not  without  mean- 
ing. They  spring  from  the  same  sort  of  repressed 
wishes  which  are  at  the  bottom  of  our  dreams. 

Such  investigation,  Freud  states,  trace  back  the 
symptoms  of  mental  disease  with  surprising  regular- 
ity to  impressions  from  the  sexual  life.  They  show 
that  the  pathogenic  wishes  are  erotic  cravings  and 
that  disturbances  of  the  erotic  sphere  are  the  most 
important  factors  of  mental  disease. 

Psychoanalysis  may  at  first  trace  the  symptoms, 
not  to  sexual  happenings  but  to  banal  traumatic 
experiences.  This  distinction,  however,  loses  its 
significance  through  other  circumstances.  The 
[292] 


Childish  Sexuality 


analytic  research  work  which  is  necessary  for  the 
thorough  explanation  and  the  complete  cure  of 
mental  disease  does  not  stop  in  any  case  with  the 
experiences  which  coincided  with  the  onset  of  the 
disease.  It  goes  back  in  every  case  to  the  ado- 
lescence and  childhood  of  the  patient.  Here  only 
does  Freud  find  the  impressions  and  experiences 
which  determine  the  later  sickness.  It  is  the  in- 
compatible, repressed  wishes  of  childhood  which 
lend  their  power  to  the  creation  of  symptoms. 

These  mighty  wishes  of  childhood  are  very  gen- 
erally sexual  in  their  nature. 

Sexual  impulses  do  not  enter  the  child's  life  at 
puberty;  the  child  brings  them  with  him  into  the 
world  and  from  these,  what  we  call  the  "normal" 
sexuality  of  the  adult  gradually  develops. 

The  sexual  impulse  of  the  child  is  very  complex 
and  can  be  analysed  into  many  components  arising 
from  different  sources.  It  is  not  at  first  related 
to  the  function  of  reproduction.  It  enables  the 
child  to  secure  various  forms  of  pleasurable  sensa- 
tions such  as  the  auto-excitation  of  certain  particu- 
larly sensitive  parts  of  the  body,  genitals,  rectum, 
skin  and  other  surfaces.  Thumb  sucking  is  a  good 
example  of  this  form  of  gratification. 

As  in  this  first  phase  of  the  child's  sexual  life 
the  child  finds  the  gratification  he  seeks  in  his  own 

[2931 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


body,  Freud  calls  this  period  the  period  of  auto- 
erotism. 

Besides  auto-erotic  manifestations,  Freud  finds 
in  the  early  me  of  the  child  impulse  components 
of  the  libido  which  presuppose  a  second  person  as 
their  object. 

These  impulses  appear  in  opposed  pairs,  active 
and  passive.  The  most  important  pairs  of  this 
group  are  sadism  and  masochism,  the  pleasure  of 
inflicting  pain  and  the  pleasure  of  suffering  pain, 
and  the  active  and  passive  forms  of  exhibitionism. 

From  the  passive  form  of  exhibitionism  is  de- 
rived the  impulse  toward  artistic  or  histrionic  rep- 
resentation. From  the  active  form,  scientific  curi- 
osity. 

The  differences  between  the  sexes  play  no  very 
important  part  in  the  child's  life  and  there  is  in 
every  child  a  homosexual  tendency. 

The  sexual  life  of  the  child,  varied  but  inorgan- 
ized,  in  which  each  single  craving  goes  about  seek- 
ing its  satisfaction  independently  from  the  others, 
becomes  gradually  organized  in  two  directions  and, 
at  the  time  of  puberty,  the  definite  sex  of  the  in- 
dividual is  clearly  determined. 

The  various  cravings  submit  themselves  to  the 
primacy  of  the  genital  zone  and  the  entire  sexual 
life  is  taken  over  into  the  service  of  procreation. 
[294] 


Morbid  Predispositions 


Object  choice  prevails  over  auto-erotism  and  the 
love  object  satisfies  all  the  separate  cravings  of  the 
sex  urge. 

But  many  of  the  original  components  of  that  urge 
are  given  no  share  in  the  final  shaping  of  the  sex- 
ual life.  Even  before  the  advent  of  puberty,  cer- 
tain cravings  had  been  submitted  to  the  strongest 
repression  by  education.  Shame,  disgust,  morality 
prevent  the  repressed  cravings  from  asserting  them- 
selves. 

Every  process  of  development  brings  with  itself 
the  germ  of  pathological  predispositions  whenever  it 
is  inhibited,  delayed  or  incompletely  carried  out. 
This  is  true  of  the  sexual  development.  In  some 
individuals  it  may  not  be  completed  and  it  may 
leave  in  its  wake  abnormalities  or  a  predisposition 
to  later  diseases  by  the  way  of  regression.  Some 
cravings  which  have  not  fallen  under  the  domina- 
tion of  the  genital  zone  may  cause  a  perversion. 
The  original  equality  of  the  sexes  may  be  main- 
tained and  homosexualism  is  the  result. 

The  neuroses  contain  the  same  cravings  found  in 
perversions  but  in  a  negative  form.  Those  crav- 
ings have  undergone  a  repression  but  maintain 
themselves  as  complexes  in  the  unconscious. 

Exaggerated  expression  of  a  craving  in  very 
early  life  leads  to  a  fixation. 

[295] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  child  takes  both  parents  as  an  object  of  his 
erotic  wishes  but  soon  singles  out  one  of  them,  fol- 
lowing in  that  respect  the  example  set  by  his  par- 
ents, the  father  preferring  his  daughter,  the  mother, 
her  son.  The  child  reacts  to  that  choice  and  if  a 
son,  wishes  himself  in  the  place  of  his  father,  if  a 
daughter  in  the  place  of  her  mother. 

The  feelings  aroused  by  such  relations  between 
parents  and  offspring  are  not  only  of  a  positive  and 
affectionate  nature  but  of  a  hostile  and  negative 
nature  as  well. 

A  situation  ensues  which  can  be  roughly  repre- 
sented by  the  myth  of  Oedipus,  who  killed  his  father 
and  married  his  mother. 

This  fixation  which  is  submitted  at  an  early  age 
to  a  strong  repression  is  to  Freud's  mind  the  cen- 
tral complex  of  every  neurosis. 

About  the  time  when  the  child  is  still  obsessed 
by  this  complex  his  attention  is  drawn  towards  the 
processes  of  reproduction  and  he  begins  to  seek 
solutions  for  the  question:  where  do  children  come 
from?  Children  build  up  at  that  time  a  number 
of  pregnancy  and  birth  theories  which  reappear  in 
later  life  in  many  neuroses. 

The  neurotic  disturbance  is  simply  the  in- 
dividual's flight  from  a  reality  in  which  his  re- 
pressed cravings  cannot  be  gratified.  The  resist- 
[296] 


The  Modern  Cloister 


ance  of  the  neurotic  against  any  cure  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  not  certain  that  the  substitute  grati- 
fication offered  him  by  his  sickness  can  be  replaced 
in  reality  by  something  better. 

The  neurotic  flight  from  reality  takes  place  over 
the  path  of  regression,  through  a  return  to  earlier 
stages  of  life  in  which  gratification  was  not  lacking. 
The  regression  is  a  twofold  one,  for  the  libido  re- 
gresses not  only  to  an  earlier  stage  of  development, 
but  also  adopts  primitive,  archaic  forms  of  ex- 
pression. 

We  are  all,  whether  we  are  normal  or  abnormal, 
seeking  an  escape  from  reality.  The  strong,  en- 
ergetic man  tries  by  dint  of  labour  to  make  his 
wishes  come  true  and  generally  succeeds.  If  the 
individual  displeased  with  reality  possesses  artistic 
talent  he  can  transform  his  fancies  into  artistic 
creations.  The  neurosis  takes  in  our  days  the  place 
of  the  cloister  in  which  the  weak  and  disappointed 
took  refuge. 

The  neurosis  has  no  psychic  content  of  its  own 
which  cannot  be  found  in  healthy  minds.  The 
struggle  for  life  leads  either  to  success  and  health, 
or  to  compensatory  activities  or  to  the  neurosis. 

Freud  has  divided  mental  disturbances  into 
neuroses,  psychoneuroses  and  psychoses. 

The  true  neuroses  are  anxiety  neurosis  and 

[297] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


neurasthenia.  Their  cause  lies  in  the  present  and 
in  the  abnormal  condition  of  the  sexual  function. 

The  psycho-neuroses  are  hysteria  and  the  ob- 
session neurosis,  in  which  the  real  causative  fac- 
tors belong  to  the  patients'  early  childhood. 

In  psychoneuroses  as  well  as  in  neuroses  the 
factors  of  the  disturbance  are  sexual,  but  in  the 
psychoneuroses  the  influence  of  heredity  is  more 
important. 

Heredity  finds  its  expression  in  a  peculiar  psy- 
chosexual  constitution  which  asserts  itself  in  an 
abnormally  strong  and  many-sided  instinctive  life 
and  a  resultant  sexual  precocity. 

Between  the  compelling  instinct  and  the  opposing 
force  of  sexual  denial,  the  way  is  prepared  for  some 
disturbance  which  does  not  solve  the  conflict  but 
seeks  to  escape  it  by  changing  the  libidinous  crav- 
ings into  symptoms  of  disease. 

Besides  actual  heredity,  however,  there  is  a 
pseudo-heredity  which  is  after  all  the  influence  of 
the  environment.  Neurotic  parents  may  not  pro- 
create neurotic  children  but  they  bring  up  their 
children  to  be  neurotics. 

Freud  does  not  classify  the  psychoses  accord- 
ing to  their  clinical  picture  but  according  to  their 
mechanism,  into  overpowering  psychoses  and  de- 
fence psychoses.  In  the  former,  the  unconscious 
[298] 


Insanity  an  Asset 


has  completely  overcome  the  conscious  and  the  ego 
has  torn  itself  loose  from  some  unbearable  idea. 
For  instance  a  girl  disappointed  in  love  imagined 
for  two  months  that  she  was  living  with  her  lover 
and  in  that  abnormal  way  had  her  wishes  ful- 
filled. 

The  defence  psychoses  are  characterized  by  the 
violent  repression  of  an  idea.  In  dementia  prae- 
cox  there  is  a  withdrawal  of  the  libido  from  the 
objects  of  the  external  world.  Freud  observed  a 
group  of  paranoia  cases  arising  from  repression  of 
painful  memories.  The  libido  fastening  itself  to 
the  ego  complex  rn^y  lead  to  ideas  of  grandeur, 
which  explains  the  connection  between  persecution 
mania  and  grandiose  delusions.  As  far  as  the 
periodic  melancholia  is  concerned,  Freud  asserts 
that  it  dissolves  itself  with  unexpected  frequency 
into  obsessional  ideas  and  obsessional  affects. 

In  other  words,  insanity  is  no  longer  considered 
as  a  brain  disease  or  as  a  set  of  absurd  symptoms 
grouped  in  varying  clinical  pictures.  Insanity  is 
an  abnormal  asset  for  the  insane,  a  dream  from 
which  he  does  not  awaken  and  which  supplies  him 
with  an  abnormal  form  of  wish-fulfilment. 

The  analytic  treatment  as  outlined  by  Freud  con- 
sists in  letting  the  patient  talk  on  any  subject  he 
pleases,  since  nothing  can  occur  to  him  which  does 

[299] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


not  bear  on  the  complex  which  the  analyst  is  seek- 
ing. The  patient  often  stops  and  pretends  that  he 
has  nothing  m'ore  to  say.  This  indicates  that  the 
patient  is  holding  back  or  rejecting  certain  ideas 
because  his  unconscious  resistance  masquerades 
as  a  critical  judgment  of  the  value  of  the  ideas. 
The  patient  can  avoid  that  if  he  is  warned  in  ad- 
vance and  told  not  to  pass  any  judgment  on  the 
ideas  that  come  to  his  mind,  however  unessential, 
irrelevant,  nonsensical  or  personally  unpleasant 
they  may  be. 

These  irruptive  ideas  which  the  patient  values 
little,  "are  to  the  analyst  like  the  ore  which  can  be 
transformed  through  simple  processes  into  valu- 
able metal."  If  one  desires  to  gain  in  a  short  time 
a  preliminary  knowledge  of  the  patient's  repressed 
complexes,  the  examination  can  be  conducted  with 
the  help  of  association  experiments. 

This  procedure  is  to  the  analyst  what  qualitative 
analysis  is  to  the  chemist.  It  may  be  dispensed 
with  in  the  therapy  of  neurotic  patients,  but  it  is 
indispensable  in  the  study  of  the  psychoses. 

This  is  followed  by  dream  study  and  the  close 
observation  of  the  patient's  involuntary,  faulty  ac- 
tions, etc. 

Freud  attaches  a  great  importance  to  the  phe- 
nomenon known  as  the  transference  which  he  con- 
[300] 


The  Transference 


siders  as  further  evidence  of  the  sexual  forces  which 
are  at  the  bottom  of  the  neurosis. 

The  patient,  he  says,  directs  toward  the  person 
of  the  physician  a  great  amount  of  tender  emotion, 
often  mixed  with  enmity,  which  has  no  foundation 
in  any  real  relation,  and  must  be  derived  in  every 
respect  from  the  old  wish-fancies  of  the  patient 
which  have  become  unconscious. 

Every  fragment  of  his  emotional  life,  which  can 
no  longer  be  called  back  into  memory,  is  accord- 
ingly lived  over  by  the  patient  in  his  relation  to 
the  physician,  and  only  by  living  it  over  in  the 
transference  is  he  convinced  of  the  power  of  those 
unconscious  sexual  stimuli.  The  symptoms 
which,  to  use  a  chemical  expression,  are  the  precipi- 
tates of  earlier  love  experiences,  using  the  word 
love  in  its  broadest  sense,  can  only  be  dissolved  in 
the  high  temperature  of  the  experience  of  trans- 
ference and  transformed  into  other  psychic  prod- 
ucts. 

The  phenomenon  of  transference  is  not  created 
by  the  psychoanalytic  treatment.  It  arises  spon- 
taneously in  all  human  relations  and  in  the  rela- 
tions of  the  patient  to  the  physician.  It  is  every- 
where the  bearer  of  therapeutic  influences  and  the 
stronger  it  is  the  less  one  is  aware  of  its  presence. 

Psychoanalysis  does  not  create  it  but  simply 

[301] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


reveals  it  to  consciousness  and  avails  itself  of  it 
to  direct  the  psychic  processes  toward  a  certain 
goal. 

People  ignorant  of  the  analytic  technique  often 
express  the  fear  that  by  causing  certain  unconscious 
cravings  to  rise  to  consciousness  those  cravings  may 
overpower  the  patient's  ethical  strivings  and  rob 
him  of  his  cultural  acquisitions. 

Experience  teaches,  Freud  states,  that  the  physi- 
cal and  mental  power  of  a  wish  whose  repression 
has  failed,  is  incomparably  stronger  when  it  re- 
mains unconscious  than  when  it  is  made  conscious. 
The  unconscious  wish  cannot  be  influenced  and  is 
not  hindered  by  strivings  in  the  opposite  direction, 
while  the  conscious  wish  is  inhibited  by  other  con- 
scious wishes  of  an  opposite  nature. 

What  then  becomes  of  the  cravings  which  were 
set  free  by  analysis?  How  can  they  be  made  harm- 
less for  the  individual? 

The  craving  is  generally  "consumed"  during  the 
analysis  by  the  correct  mental  activity  of  opposite 
wishes  which  are  conscious  and  more  valuable 
socially.  Repression  is  replaced  by  condemnation. 
This  is  easy,  Freud  thinks,  as  we  have  only  in  the 
majority  of  the  cases,  to  efface  the  effects  of  earlier 
developmental  stages  of  the  ego. 

Analysis  may  also  reveal  that  some  unconscious 
[302] 


Sublimation 


cravings  can  be  gratified  in  ways  which  would  have 
been  found  earlier  if  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual had  not  been  disturbed.  The  mere  extirpa- 
tion of  infantile  wishes  is  not  the  ideal  aim  of 
development,  for  the  neurotic  loses,  through  his 
repressions,  many  sources  of  mental  energy  which 
could  have  been  utilized  for  his  character  building 
and  his  life  activities. 

Sublimation  is  a  process  which  directs  the  energy 
of  the  infantile  wish-stimuli  toward  a  higher  goal, 
eventually  no  longer  sexual.  The  components  of 
the  sexual  urge  have  a  great  capacity  for  sublima- 
tion and  can  exchange  their  sexual  goal  for  one 
more  remote  and  socially  valuable.  "To  the 
utilization  of  the  energy  reclaimed  in  such  a  way, 
in  the  activities  of  our  mental  life,  we  probably  owe 
the  highest  cultural  achievements.  As  long  as  an 
impulse  is  repressed,  it  cannot  be  sublimated. 
After  the  removal  of  the  repression,  the  way  to 
sublimation  is  open," 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  following  books  by  the  founder  of  the  psycho- 
analytic science  must  be  read  before  one  can  acquire  a 
clear  understanding  of  Freud's  doctrines: 
FREUD,  S. — "Three  Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Sex" 
(Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co.) 

[303] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


FREUD,  S. — "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams"  (Macmillan) . 

FREUD,   S. — "The  Psychopathology  of  Everyday   Life" 
(Macmillan). 

FREUD,  S. — "Wit  and  the  Unconscious"  (Moffat,  Yard). 

FREUD,  S. — "The  Origin  and  Development  of  Psycho- 
analysis" (Clark  University). 

FREUD,  S. — "The  History  of  the  Psychoanalytic  Move- 
ment" (Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Pub.  Co.). 

FREUD,  S. — "Introduction  to  Psychoanalysis"  (Boni  and 

Liver  ight) . 
To  understand  the  application  of  Freud's  theories  to 

purely  morbid  states  one  should  consult  Hitschmann's 

"Freud's  Theories  of  the  Neuroses"   (Moffat,  Yard),  a 

most  reliable  book  of  reference. 


[304] 


CHAPTER  II:    JUNG.    THE  ZURICH  SCHOOL 

Dr.  Carl  G.  Jung  of  Zurich,  Switzerland,  one  of 
Freud's  disciples,  has  developed  his  master's  views, 
broadening  them  out  in  certain  respects  but  impart- 
ing to  them  in  other  respects  a  great  deal  of  vague- 
ness. 

Freud's  conception  of  the  libido  does  not  satisfy 
Jung.  He  conceived  that  urge  as  a  force  reaching 
far  beyond  the  confines  of  sexuality  or  love  even 
in  their  broadest  sense.  To  him  this  force  is  a 
mysterious  thing,  similar  to  Bergson's  Vital  Urge, 
and  which  manifests  itself  not  merely  through  sex 
and  other  hedonist  activities,  but  through  organic 
growth  and  development,  and  through  all  mental 
and  intellectual  activities. 

He  agrees  with  Freud  that  the  instinct  of  repro- 
duction is  at  the  basis  of  hundreds  of  manifestations 
which  at  the  present  day  seem  to  have  completely 
lost  all  the  sexual  significance  they  once  had,  but 
he  refuses,  on  account  of  their  present  character,  to 
designate  them  as  sexual. 

In  place  of  a  sexual  viewpoint,  Jung  introduces 
into  abnormal  psychology  an  energic  viewpoint. 

[305] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  first  manifestation  of  the  libido  or  vital 
energy  is  the  instinct  of  nutrition.  From  this  stage 
the  libido  slowly  develops  through  the  many  activi- 
ties of  the  act  of  sucking  into  the  sexual  function. 
Hence  he  does  not  consider  the  act  of  sucking  as  a 
sexual  act.  The  pleasure  derived  from  sucking 
the  mother's  nipple  cannot  be  considered  as  a 
sexual  pleasure  but  as  a  nutritional  pleasure,  for 
Jung  does  not  see  anywhere  any  evidence  that 
pleasure  in  itself  is  sexual. 

It  is  because  the  libido  attaches  itself  to  an  object 
or  withdraws  itself  from  it  that  the  object  interests 
us  or  appeals  to  us.  The  object  itself  is  indifferent. 
The  neurotic  has  no  conscious  reason  for  the  outflow 
or  the  withdrawal  of  his  libido,  but  when  there  is 
an  exaggerated  interest  for  one  object,  there  is  a 
consequent  lack  of  energy  elsewhere. 

The  second  point  on  which  Jung  disagrees  with 
Freud  is  the  meaning  of  the  childish  manifestations 
of  sexuality  which  Freud  calls  "polymorphous  per- 
verse" because  of  their  similarity  to  the  abnormal 
phenomena  of  adult  life  known  as  perversions. 

Jung  refuses  to  use  the  word  perverse  in  connec- 
tion with  those  infantile  activities.  They  are  to  his 
mind  the  gradual  enfoldment  of  sexuality.  He 
divides  life  into  three  periods :  the  presexual  period 
extending  to  the  third  or  fourth  year,  in  which  the 
[306] 


The  Polymorphous  Perverse 


libido  is  mainly  occupied  with  nutrition  and  growth, 
and  corresponds  roughly  to  the  caterpillar  stage  of 
the  butterfly. 

Then  comes  the  prepubertal  stage,  from  the 
fourth  year  to  the  age  of  puberty,  followed  by  the 
period  of  maturity. 

In  the  presexual  stage,  the  "polymorphous  per- 
verse" activities  arise  from  the  general  broadening 
of  the  libido  which  is  no  longer  at  the  exclusive 
service  of  nutrition  and  begins  to  flow  through  many 
other  channels.  The  childish  habits  are  abandoned 
gradually,  which  means  that  a  large  amount  of 
libido  is  withdrawn  from  them. 

If  on  the  other  hand  the  libido  in  its  extension 
from  nutrition  to  sex  is  arrested  or  retarded,  a 
fixation  may  result,  creating  a  disharmony,  for  the 
physical  growth  of  the  child  cannot  wait  and  never 
stops.  A  discrepancy  arises  between  the  infantile 
character  of  the  child's  emotional  life  and  the  needs 
of  the  more  mature  individual  and  the  seed  is  sown 
for  some  maladaptation  of  the  neurotic  type. 

The  child  uses  up  a  great  amount  of  energy  in 
day  dreaming  which  compensates  him  for  the  thou- 
sand things  which  the  world  is  denying  him  or 
rather  taking  away  from  him. 

As  the  human  being  passes  from  childhood  into 
adulthood,  the  increasing  demands  which  life 

[307] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


makes  upon  him  compel  him  to  abandon  the  world 
of  fancies  in  which  he  spent  so  many  hours.  There 
again  there  may  be  a  lingering  of  the  libido 
in  the  phantasy  stage  and  this  leads  to  a 
condition  called  introversion.  The  introvert  is 
characterized  by  the  fact  that  his  libido  is  turned 
toward  his  own  personality  and  that  he  regards 
everything  from,  the  point  of  view  of  his  person- 
ality. The  introvert  lingers  on  situations  and  ex- 
periences which  are  a  thing  of  the  past,  which  are 
no  longer  of  any  import  and  which  obscure  to  him 
the  actual  situation  he  should  face. 

This  constitutes  another  form  of  maladaptation 
to  practical  life  with  its  various  social  aspects. 

The  dominant  factor  in  the  child's  life  are  the 
parents. 

At  this  point,  Jung  again  disagrees  with  Freud. 
Jung  admits  that  there  are  many  neurotic  persons, 
who,  in  their  infancy  and  childhood,  showed  un- 
mistakable neurotic  traits  which  in  later  life  became 
more  deeply  marked.  And  he  realizes  also  that 
the  parents  wield  on  the  child's  destiny,  by  their 
affection  or  lack  of  affection,  wrong  example,  etc., 
an  influence  which  is  decisive  for  the  child's  future. 

The  child's  mentality  may  be  so  moulded  by 
early  influences  that  in  later  life  he  will  constantly 
seek  in  the  actual  world  conditions  which  domi- 
[308] 


The  Parent  Image 


nated  in  the  family  circle  and  will  never  be  satisfied 
until  he  thinks  he  has  drawn  near  that  goal. 

But  the  adult  is  not  conscious  of  those  influences 
and  may  actually  consider  himself  absolutely  free 
from  such  tyranny,  the  more  so  as  he  often  realizes 
the  profound  outward  difference  between  present 
and  past  conditions  and  fails  to  notice  their  essential 
similarity. 

Therefore,  Jung  does  not  consider  that  the  actual 
parents  are  the  actual  factors  in  a  subject's  attitude 
to  life  and  its  problems,  but  rather  the  distorted, 
often  idealized,  images  of  the  parents,  the  father 
imago  and  the  mother  imago. 

To  Jung,  the  Oedipus  Complex  is  a  purely  sym- 
bolic situation  in  which  the  mother  has  absolutely 
no  sexual  significance  for  the  child. 

It  is  not  the  mere  existence  of  this  complex,  Jung 
writes,  which  characterizes  the  neurotic,  for  every- 
body has  it  in  his  unconscious,  but  the  neurotic's 
strong  attachment  to  it.  This  so-called  fixation  is 
probably  a  normal  phenomenon.  The  fact  that 
the  neurotic  seems  markedly  influenced  by  it  shows 
that  it  is  less  a  matter  of  fixation  than  of  a  peculiar 
ise  which  he  makes  of  his  infantile  past.  He 
exaggerates  its  importance  and  attributes  to  it  a 
great  artificial  value. 

The  jealousy  which  even  very  young  children 

[309] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


may  show  toward  their  father  more  or  less  corre- 
sponds to  the  displeasure  which  certain  animals, 
dogs,  for  example,  show  in  regard  to  strangers  ap- 
proaching their  masters  or  the  caresses  their  masters 
may  lavish  on  other  dogs,  cats,  etc.  Children  prob- 
ably appreciate  their  mother  most  as  a  source  of 
food,  protection  and  physical  comfort.  Later, 
when  eroticism  begins  to  develop,  the  male  child 
tends  to  prefer  the  mother,  the  female  child  the 
father,  the  male  child  experiencing  something  akin 
to  sexual  jealousy  toward  his  father,  the  female 
child  toward  her  mother. 

As  puberty  is  attained,  male  and  female  child 
free  themselves  from  their  too  exclusive  attachment 
for  their  parents  and  upon  the  extent  of  their  detach- 
ment depends  their  future  well  being. 

This  disentanglement  is  often  accompanied  by  a 
severe  struggle  and  a  mental  and  physical  crisis 
which  Jung  designates  as  the  stage  of  self-sacrifice. 
In  that  period  the  childish  tendencies  and  forms  of 
love  are  sacrificed  in  order  that  the  energy  they 
consume  may  be  freed  and  turned  toward  self- 
fulfilment  aims. 

We  now  reach  another  important  point  whereon 
Jung  separates  himself  from  Freud. 

To  Freud  the  many  repressions  which  take  place 
before  and  during  the  stage  characterized  by  Jung 
[310] 


Adaptation  to  Life 


as  the  stage  of  self-sacrifice  result  in  the  accumula- 
tion of  unconscious  material  constantly  seeking  an 
outlet.  Hence  to  Freud,  dreams  are  in  their  es- 
sence a  symbolic  veil  for  repressed  desires  which 
are  in  conflict  with  the  ideals  of  the  personality. 

To  Jung  the  dream  is  a  subliminal  picture  of  the 
psychological  condition  of  the  individual  in  his 
waking  state.  It  represents  a  resume  of  the  sub- 
liminal association  material  which  is  brought 
together  by  the  momentary  psychological  situation. 
The  volitional  meaning  of  the  dream  which  Freud 
calls  the  repressed  desire  is  to  Jung  a  means  of 
expression. 

The  activity  of  the  consciousness,  speaking  bio- 
logically, represents  the  psychological  effort  which 
the  individual  makes  in  adapting  himself  to  the  con- 
ditions of  life.  His  consciousness  endeavours  to 
adjust  itself  to  the  necessities  of  the  moment.  In 
other  words,  there  are  tasks  that  the  individual  must 
perform,  obstacles  he  must  overcome.  In  many 
cases  he  is  at  a  loss  to  find  a  solution  and  hence 
tends  to  refer  to  previous  experiences  of  a  more  or 
less  similar  nature.  We  always  try  to  understand 
the  unknown  which  lies  in  the  future  in  terms  of 
the  known  which  happened  in  the  past. 

As  Jung  sees  no  reasons  for  supposing  that  the 
unconscious  follows  laws  different  from  those  nil- 

[311] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


ing  conscious  thought,  he  believes  that  the  uncon- 
scious arrives  at  an  understanding  of  the  unknown 
by  assimilating  it  to  something  which  is  known. 
When  America  was  first  discovered  by  the 
Spaniards,  the  Indians  took  the  horses  of  the  con- 
querors for  huge  pigs,  for  they  were  familiar  with 
the  appearance  of  pigs,  had  never  seen  horses  and 
hence  drew  comparisons  between  the  unknown 
horses  and  the  well  known  pigs. 

Hence  the  wealth  of  symbols  used  in  dreams. 

It  is  then  the  present  conflict  which,  according 
to  Jung,  dominates  our  dream  states  and  supplies 
their  content. 

And  it  is  the  present  conflict,  too,  Jung  thinks, 
which  causes  the  onset  of  the  neurosis.  Jung  re- 
jects the  Freudian  view  according  to  which  the  in- 
fantile past  is  the  direct  causes  of  the  neurosis. 

Jung  thinks  that  the  regression  to  infantile  or 
childish  forms  of  thought  or  action  is  prompted  by 
the  patient's  desire  to  withdraw  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  present. 

The  conflict  is  produced  by  some  important  task 
which  is  essential  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  indi- 
vidual's destiny  and  which  the  subject  refuses  to 
perform. 

A  sensitive  and  somewhat  inharmonious  char- 
acter will  always  meet  with  special  difficulties  and 
[312] 


The  Neurotic  s  Individualism 


with  greater  obstacles  than  a  perfectly  normal  and 
more  resistant  individual.  For  the  neurotic,  there 
are  no  established  ways,  as  his  aims  and  tasks  are 
apt  to  be  of  a  highly  individual  character.  He 
tries  to  follow  the  more  uncontrolled  half -conscious 
ways  of  normal  people,  not  fully  realizing  his  own 
critical  nature  which  imposes  upon  him  more  effort 
than  the  normal  person  is  required  to  exert.  There 
are  children  who  show  their  increased  sensitiveness 
and  inadaptability  in  the  very  first  weeks  of  their 
life  by  their  difficulty  in  taking  the  breast,  by  their 
exaggerated  nervous  reactions. 

This  predisposition  is  the  cause  of  the  first  resist- 
ances against  adaptation.  In  such  cases  the  libido 
does  not  find  its  appropriate  outlet  and  replaces 
modern  and  acceptable  forms  of  adaptation  by 
some  abnormal,  primitive  forms. 

Infantile  fantasies  determine  the  form  and  fur- 
ther development  of  a  neurosis  but  they  do  not 
constitute  the  origin  of  the  neurosis.  The  fact  that 
the  patient  himself  may  consider  infantile  fancies 
as  the  cause  of  his  neurosis  does  not  prove  that  he 
is  right  in  his  belief  or  that  a  theory  following  the 
same  belief  is  right  either.  The  fact  that  infantile 
fancies  are  exaggerated  and  put  into  the  foreground 
is  simply  a  consequence  of  the  stored-up  energy  or 
libido. 

[313] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


The  psychological  trouble  in  neurosis  and  neu- 
rosis itself  can  be  considered  as  an  act  of  adaptation 
that  has  failed.  A  neurosis  is,  from  a  certain  point 
of  view,  an  attempt  at  self -cure. 

Jung's  view  of  the  neurosis  does  not  prevent  him 
from  adhering  to  the  Freudian  mode  of  analysis. 
The  analyst,  according  to  Jung,  must  not  imagine 
that,  by  unravelling  the  infantile  fancies  he  is  un- 
earthing the  end  roots  of  the  disease.  But  he  must 
uproot  those  fancies  because  the  energy  which  the 
patient  needs  for  his  health,  that  is,  for  his  adapta- 
tion, is  attached  to  them. 

By  means  of  psychoanalysis  the  connection  be- 
tween the  conscious  life  and  the  libido  in  the  un- 
conscious is  re-established.  Thus  this  unconscious 
libido  is  placed  anew  at  the  service  of  conscious 
activity.  Only  in  this  way  can  split-off  energy 
become  again  available  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  necessary  tasks  of  life. 

To  Jung,  psychoanalysis  is  no  longer  a  mere 
reduction  of  the  individual  to  his  primitive  sexual 
wishes  but  "a  high  moral  task  of  immense  educa- 
tional value."  It  should  not  occupy  itself  with 
conflicts  for  which  an  external  solution  can  be 
found  unless  it  can  adjust  them  through  an  internal 
solution.  For  example,  some  man  dissatisfied  with 
[314] 


Solving  Conflicts 


his  home  life  may  think  that  all  his  difficulties 
would  disappear  if  he  married  another  woman. 
But  the  old  Adam  would  probably  bungle  the  new 
union  as  it  bungled  the  old  one.  A  real  solution 
for  many  such  conflicts  only  comes  from  within, 
and  only  then  because  the  patient  has  been  brought 
to  a  new  standpoint. 

For  example,  the  conflict  between  love  and  duty 
must  be  solved  upon  that  particular  plane  of  char- 
acter where  love  and  duty  are  no  longer  in  opposi- 
tion. The  familiar  conflict  between  instinct  and 
conventional  morality  must  be  solved  in  such  a  way 
that  both  factors  are  taken  into  account  and  this  is 
only  possible  through  a  change  of  character. 

Jung  regards  the  question  of  the  doctor's  remain- 
ing true  to  his  scientific  convictions  as  rather  unim- 
portant in  comparison  with  the  question  as  to  how 
he  can  best  help  his  patient. 

The  analyst  must  be  a  teacher  of  ethics.  Young 
neurotics  must  be  made  to  realize  that  their  search 
for  a  more  valuable  personality  is  often  a  cloak 
for  the  evasion  of  biological  duty.  Older  patients 
looking  back  too  obstinately  toward  the  sexual  valu- 
ation of  youth  may  be  simply  retreating  from  a 
duty  which  demands  the  recognition  of  social 
values.  In  most  cases  the  "canalization  of  the 

[315] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


libido"  for  the  fulfilment  of  life's  simple  duties 
suffices  to  reduce  to  nothing  many  exaggerated  de- 
sires. 

At  the  same  time,  Jung  calls  our  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  question  is  not  as  simple  as  that  and 
cannot  always  be  solved  in  terms  of  "morality." 
"Immoral"  tendencies  cannot  always  be  removed 
by  analysis.  On  the  contrary,  some  of  them 
appear  often  more  clearly  and  hence  one  must  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  belong  to  the  individual's 
biological  duties.  This  is  no  longer  a  problem  for 
pathologists  but  for  sociologists.  This  is  especially 
true  of  certain  sexual  claims.  Nature  does  not 
content  herself  with  theories.  At  the  present  day 
we  have  no  real  sexual  morality,  only  a  legal  atti- 
tude toward  sexuality.  Just  as  the  early  Middle 
Ages  had  no  business  ethics  but  only  certain  preju- 
dices and  a  legal  standpoint. 

This  obscure  feeling  that  a  new,  more  progres- 
sive world  is  needed  constitutes,  at  times,  a  part  of 
the  neurotic  complication.  We  must  not  forget 
that  the  moral  law  of  today  will  be  cast  tomorrow 
into  the  melting  pot  to  the  end  that  it  may  serve 
at  some  future  time  as  the  basis  of  some  new 
ethical  structure. 

So  it  comes  that  there  are  many  neurotics  whose 
delicacy  of  feeling  prevents  them  from  being  in 
[316] 


Finding  Our  Life  Work 


agreement  with  present-day  morality  and  who  can- 
not adapt  themselves  to  civilization  as  long  as  their 
moral  code  has  gaps,  the  filling  of  which  is  the 
crying  need  of  the  age. 

Jung  thinks  that  in  many  cases  neurotics  are  neu- 
rotics, not  because  they  are  unsatisfied  sexually  or 
have  not  found  the  right  mate  or  because  they  still 
are  suffering  from  a  fixation  on  their  infantile  sexu- 
ality: the  real  cause  for  their  neurosis  is,  in  many 
cases,  their  inability  to  recognize  the  work  that  is 
waiting  for  them,,  of  helping  to  build  up  a  new 
civilization. 

In  the  past  nothing  can  be  altered,  and  in  the 
present  very  little,  but  the  future  is  ours.  The 
neurotic  is  ill  not  because  he  has  lost  his  old  faith 
but  because  he  has  not  as  yet  found  a  new  form  for 
his  finest  aspirations. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Beginners  will  find  Jung's  theories  presented  in  a  very 
lucid  way  in  Beatrice  M.  Hinckle's  introduction  to  Jung's 
"Psychology  of  the  Unconscious"  (Moffat,  Yard).  For 
more  detail,  consult  C.  G.  Jung's  "Analytical  Psychology" 
(Moffat,  Yard)  in  which  the  Swiss  analyst  not  only  dis- 
cusses his  position  in  regard  to  the  various  problems  of 
psychoanalysis  but  brings  out  the  main  points  on  which 
he  disagrees  with  Freud  and  Adler.  His  correspondence 
with  Dr.  Loy,  which  is  included  in  this  volume,  will 

[317] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


prove  most  interesting,  as  it  reveals  to  the  reader  the 
mental  evolution  which  led  Jung  from  the  practice  of 
hypnotism  to  that  of  psychoanalysis.  C.  J.  Jung's  "The 
Association  Method"  (Clark  University)  explains  very 
clearly  some  of  the  methods  of  analytical  examination. 
Advanced  students  will  find  the  development  of  his 
thought  and  its  applications  to  religion  and  folk  lore  in 
his  "Psychology  of  the  Unconscious"  and  in  his  "Studies 
in  Word-Association"  (Moffat,  Yard). 


[318] 


CHAPTER  III:     ABLER.     INDIVIDUAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 

Adler  does  not  call  himself  a  psychoanalyst. 
After  breaking  away  from  the  Freudian  camp  he 
designated  his  research  work  and  his  methods  of 
psychiatry  as  Individual  Psychology.  The  term 
has  merits,  for  there  are  no  cut-and-dried  rules  in 
the  study  and  treatment  of  mental  disturbances  and 
every  case  must  be  approached  from  a  different 
angle.  It  has  not,  however,  been  used  by  any  one 
else  in  the  literature  of  psychoanalysis. 

Freud  considers  human  life  as  the  result  of  the 
play  of  unconscious  forces  which  drive  us  blindly 
and  which  we  are  in  no  way  capable  of  leading  or 
regulating.  The  repressed  desires  which  are  con- 
stantly seeking  an  outlet  and  which  by  creating  an 
abnormal  outlet  for  themselves  upset  at  times  our 
mental  balance,  serve  no  definite  purpose. 

Jung,  dissatisfied  with  this  form  of  psychological 
fatalism,  contended  that  the  neurosis  was  an  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  at  adjusting  one's  conduct  to  the 
problems  of  the  present. 

Adler  thinks  that  all  the  forces  of  the  individual 

[319] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


are  tending  toward  a  definite  goal  and  that  in  every 
manifestation  of  life  we  can  find  traces  of  a  domi- 
nating or  guiding  idea. 

In  other  words,  Freud  emphasized  the  importance 
of  the  past,  Jung  that  of  the  present,  Adler  that  of 
the  future. 

To  Adler  the  most  minute  trait  of  psychic  life  is 
permeated  with  a  purpose-force.  Every  psychic 
event  bears  the  impress,  or  in  other  words  is  a 
symbol  of  a  uniformly  directed  plan  of  life  which 
only  comes  to  light  more  clearly  in  the  neurosis. 
But  none  of  the  neurotic  traits  are  characteristic  of 
the  neurotic  exclusively.  The  neurotic  shows  no 
single  idiosyncrasy  which  cannot  be  proved  to  exist 
in  the  healthy  individual,  although  it  may  only  be 
revealed  to  the  subject  or  the  analyst  through 
analysis. 

Adler  reached  his  psychological  viewpoint  after 
studying  the  effect  which  some  organic  inferiority 
has  on  the  mental  and  physical  health  of  the  indi- 
vidual. While  Freud  started  in  life  as  a  hypnotist 
and  under  the  influence  of  Charcot  and  Bernheim, 
Adler's  first  work  was  a  monograph  on  Organ  In- 
feriority. 

Nature  is  constantly  at  work  to  compensate  for 
all  the  deficiencies  found  in  the  organism.  If  one 
kidney  is  removed  the  other  grows  larger  and  does 
[3201 


The  Feeling  of  Incompleteness 


as  much  work  as  two  did.  If  some  of  the  heart 
valves  are  destroyed  the  muscular  activity  of  the 
heart  increases  and  thus  the  blood  stream  is  kept  in 
motion  at  the  proper  rate.  But  nature  does  more 
than  that.  An  organ's  capacity  for  work  depends 
not  only  upon  its  physical  condition  but  on  the  nerve 
impulses  sent  to  it  by  the  central  nervous  system. 
A  defective  organ  may  be  made  to  function  prop- 
erly through  a  vigorous  exercise  of  the  will.  The 
weakened  organ  is  likely  to  become,  on  that  ac- 
count, unduly  sensitive  and  in  this  peculiarity  we 
can  find  the  roots  of  nervous  suffering. 

A  patient  suffering  from  nervous  gastric  or  intes- 
tinal trouble,  for  instance,  is  often  one  who  once 
suffered  from  such  a  disturbance  and  was  cured. 
The  ailment  may  have  affected  him  in  his  early 
childhood,  but  the  memory  of  it  has  been  retained 
unconsciously  and  is  recalled  when  the  occasion 
arises. 

The  neurotic,  Adler  says,  suffers  from  a  feeling 
of  incompleteness  for  which  he  seeks  compensation. 
The  entire  picture  of  the  neurosis  and  all  its  symp- 
toms are  influenced  if  not  provoked  by  an  imagi- 
nary fictitious  goal.  It  is  not  the  "libido"  which 
is  the  'motive  force  behind  the  phenomena  of  the 
neurosis,  but  the  wish  to  be  a  complete  man.  The 
libido,  the  sex  cravings  and  the  tendencies  to  per- 

[321] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


versions  become  subjugated  by  this  power.  Adler 
in  this  respect  agrees  with  Nietzsche's  theory  of  the 
will-to-power  and  will-to-seem  and  also  with  some 
of  the  older  writers  who  held  that  the  feeling  of 
pleasure  originates  in  a  sense  of  power  and  the 
feeling  of  pain  in  a  sense  of  weakness. 

Adler  objects  to  Freud's  contention  that  the  neu- 
rosis has  a  sexual  origin.  The  sexual  picture,  he 
says,  deceives  easily  the  normal  person  and  more 
easily  yet  the  neurotic,  but  it  must  not  deceive  the 
psychologist.  The  neurotic  phenomenon  is  given 
a  sexual  tinge  by  the  antithesis  "masculine-femi- 
nine" which  has  gradually  imposed  itself  upon  hu- 
man thinking  and  which  obsesses  neurotic  thinking. 
The  assumption  (now  less  generally  spread,  but  uni- 
versal before  the  feminist  movement  began  to  check 
it),  that  masculine  meant  also  superior  and  strong, 
and  that  feminine  meant  inferior  and  weak,  is 
gospel  truth  to  the  neurotic  and  a  source  of  great 
suffering. 

The  sexual  trend  in  the  neurotic's  fancies  and 
in  his  life  leads  toward  the  masculine  goal.  The 
whole  picture  of  the  sexual  neurosis  is  simply  a 
graphic  presentation  of  the  distance  separating  the 
patient  from  the  imaginary  masculine  goal  which 
he  is  trying  to  reach. 

The  neurotic  is  not,  as  Freud  thought,  obsessed 
[322] 


A  Sick  Girl's  Fancies 


by  infantile  wishes  which  come  to  life  nightly 
through  his  dreams.  For  those  infantile  wishes  are 
themselves  subordinated  to  the  fictitious  goal,  and 
adapt  themselves  to  symbolic  expression  for  the 
sake  of  convenience. 

A  sickly  girl  who,  during  her  childhood,  was 
conscious  of  her  insecurity  and  who  has  to  rely 
entirely  on  her  father  as  far  as  her  present  and 
future  security  is  concerned,  tends  to  usurp  some 
of  her  mother's  privileges  and  may  imagine  the  en- 
tire situation  in  the  form  of  an  incest;  she  is  taking 
the  place  of  her  mother  in  her  father's  affections; 
she  is  almost  as  important  to  her  father  as  though 
she  were  her  father's  wife.  She  may  never  marry, 
for  marriage  with  a  stranger  would  not  mean  the 
security  she  finds  with  her  father,  who  is  stronger, 
wiser,  and  makes  no  physical  demands  likely  to 
humiliate  her  ego.  With  a  little  imagination  she 
may  easily  conjure  up  the  symbolic  picture  of  an 
incestuous  relation. 

Freud  saw  in  this  fantasy  a  re-birth  of  infantile 
wishes.  Adler  sees  in  this  attempt  to  reach  into 
the  remote  past,  in  that  tendency  of  the  neurotic 
to  abstraction  and  symbolization,  a  clever  uncon- 
scious scheme  to  attain  security,  to  vouchsafe  to  the 
ego  the  greatest  amount  of  gratification  and  to  reach 
the  masculine  goal. 

[323] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


How  do  neurotic  symptoms  originate?  Why 
does  the  patient  wish  to  be  a  man  and  constantly 
seek  to  prove  to  himself  his  virility?  Why  does 
he  need  so  many  egotistical  forms  of  gratifica- 
tion? 

Because,  Adler  answers,  there  stands  at  the 
threshold  of  the  neurosis  a  threatening  feeling  of 
inferiority  and  life  becomes  unbearable  unless  the 
neurotic  can  look  forward  to  a  situation  which  as- 
sures him,  noumally  or  abnormally,  safety  and 
superiority. 

The  neurotic  individual,  aside  from  his  purely 
neurotic  symptoms,  will  easily  become  conspicuous 
owing  to  his  evident  inability  to  adapt  himself  to 
his  environment.  The  consciousness  of  his  weak 
point  obsesses  him  to  such  a  degree  that  often  with- 
out knowing  it,  he  begins  to  build  over  it  a  pro- 
tective structure. 

His  sensitiveness  becomes  more  acute;  he  learns 
to  discern  relationships  which  escape  others,  he 
exaggerates  his  cautiousness,  anticipates  all  sorts 
of  unpleasant  consequences  when  he  starts  out  to  do 
something  or  suffers  some  injury;  he  endeavours  to 
hear  and  to  see  more  than  others  can  hear  or  see; 
he  belittles  himself;  he  becomes  insatiable,  econom- 
ical, constantly  strives  to  extend  the  boundaries 
of  his  influence  and  power  over  space  and  time  and 
[324] 


Life  a  Constant  Danger 


soon  loses  the  peace  of  mind  and  the  freedom  from 
prejudice  which  guarantee  mental  health. 

His  distrust  of  himself  and  others,  his  envy  and 
maliciousness  become  more  and  more  pronounced. 
He  either  tries  to  gain  the  upper  hand  in  cruel, 
aggressive  ways  or  he  endeavours  to  dominate  his 
environment  by  his  very  humility  and  submissive- 
ness. 

Freud  points  out  that  the  neurosis  is  a  means  of 
escape  from  reality.  Adler  stresses  the  fact  that 
to  the  neurotic,  life  is  nothing  but  a  dangerous 
adventure.  Not  only  must  he  escape  that  danger 
but  he  must  construct  a  strong  system  of  defence 
that  will  protect  him  against  it.  The  man  for  whom 
every  woman  constitutes  a  temptation  may  develop 
in  his  mind  an  obsessive  fear  of  syphilis,  after 
which  he  thinks  himself  secure  behind  that  protec- 
tive wall;  the  unhappily  mated  wife  escapes  inter- 
course which  is  odious  to  her  by  developing  vague 
pains  in  her  sexual  organs;  an  overworked  country 
preacher  runs  away  and  becomes  for  a  period  of 
ime  a  fruit  seller;  the  bed-ridden  neurotic  who  finds 
life  too  monotonous  has  peculiar  attacks,  rushes  to 
a  window,  threatens  to  commit  suicide  and  hence 
secures  the  constant  company  of  a  nurse. 

All  these  neurotic  symptoms  are  ready-for-use 
attitudes,  The  patient  is  not  shamming.  He  un- 

[325] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


consciously  remembers  earlier  defects,  earlier 
sieges  of  sickness  and  reproduces  them  when  an 
emergency  arises.  He  unconsciously  produces  the 
required  symptom  as  the  fingers  of  a  pianist  repro- 
duce without  any  conscious  effort  a  certain  combi- 
nation of  notes  which  has  been  carefully  memo- 
rized. 

Adler  foresees  the  objections  which  such  a  theory 
is  bound  to  bring  forth.  How  can  trigeminal 
neuralgia,  insomnia,  paralysis,  sick  headaches,  etc., 
afford  the  neurotic  any  form  of  gratification?  Be- 
cause neurotic  symptoms  are  in  the  majority  of 
cases  sure  means  for  obtaining  mastery  over  another 
person.  And  to  that  craving  for  power  and  su- 
periority the  neurotic  is  as  ready  to  sacrifice  his 
comfort  as  normal  human  beings  are  to  undergo 
hardships  in  order  to  attain  some  of  their  ideals. 
The  neurotic's  absurd  goal  is  an  abnormal  ideal, 
but  to  him  an  ideal  just  the  same. 

To  Adler,  dreams  only  acquire  a  meaning  when 
we  consider  them  as  a  symbol  of  life.  The  dream 
is  a  sketchlike  reflection  of  psychic  attitudes  and 
reveals  to  the  investigator  the  manner  in  which  the 
dreamer  regards  certain  problems. 

The  dream  is  not  the  fulfilment  of  some  infantile 
wishes,  but  a  neurotic  way  of  securing  for  the  ego 
an  easy  form  of  gratification,  and  of  solving  prob- 
[326] 


Incestuous  Dreams 


lems  which  to  the  neurotic  appear  too  complicated. 
Repeated  dreams  of  the  same  type  reveal  the  course 
followed  by  the  fictitious  guiding  line.  They  indi- 
cate various  attempts  at  solving  one  problem  and 
hence  betray  a  characteristic  feeling  of  uncertainty. 

The  analysis  of  dreams  appears  as  essential  to 
Adler  as  to  Freud  as  a  part  of  the  analytic  treat- 
ment. Adler,  however,  rejects  entirely  the  literal 
Freudian  interpretation  and  shares  some  of  Jung's 
symbolistic  views. 

The  incest  motive  he  thinks  is  as  little  real  in 
dreams  as  it  is  in  the  waking  life  of  the  individual. 
When  man  dreams  for  instance  of  intercourse  with 
his  mother,  he  is  just  running  back  to  her  for  pro- 
tection as  he  did  when  a  child.  The  fact  that  near 
relations  appear  so  often  in  our  dreams  in  sexual 
situations  is  due  to  the  very  make  up  of  our  uncon- 
scious. 

There  are  in  our  unconscious  several  layers  of 
memory  pictures  and  the  deeper  we  go,  the  fewer 
pictures  we  find,  until  arriving  at  the  bottom  we 
only  find  the  parents,  the  first  pictures  the  indi- 
vidual ever  beheld.  That  those  are  more  likely  to 
recur  than  any  others  and  to  be  used  symbolically 
whenever  our  archaic,  primitive  unconscious  needs 
human  types  to  symbolize  men  or  women,  is  easily 
understood. 

[327] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


While  Freud  stressed  the  love  motive,  Adler 
stresses  the  power  motive  and  thus  explains  the 
neurotic's  strange  inability  to  love,  his  strange 
tendency  to  become  self-centred. 

Intent  on  protecting  himself  against  all  the  perils 
of  life,  the  neurotic  is  constantly  on  his  guard. 
To  surrender  to  any  tender  feeling  would  mean  to 
him  to  submit  to  some  other  ego. 

Love  to  him  is  only  another  danger  to  be  warded 
off,  a  weak  spot  in  his  defence  system  through  which 
the  enemy,  life,  might  enter  to  defeat  him.  The 
neurotic  will  either  try  to  be  an  ascetic  or  a  Don 
Juan.  As  a  mysogynist  he  will  proclaim  his  su- 
periority over  every  woman,  as  a  Don  Juan  he  will 
proclaim  woman's  frailty  and  his  irresistible  viril- 
ity. In  either  direction  he  will  be  found  totally 
lacking  in  measure. 

Artistic  creation,  to  Adler,  is  simply  another 
form  of  compensation  for  the  individual's  organic 
shortcomings.  Organs  of  slight  inferiority  may 
develop,  he  says,  greater  functional  capacities  than 
normal  organs. 

All  mental  operations  have  a  tendency  to  concen- 
trate on  the  weak  organ  in  order  to  protect  it  from 
harm.  Singers,  speakers,  actors,  he  says,  have 
generally  recovered  from  some  organic  defect 
which  in  their  infancy  and  childhood  prompted 
[328] 


Genius  a  Compensation 


them  to  exercise  their  defective  throat,  tongue  or 
lips.  Musicians  may  have  been  overexercising  a 
defective  ear.  Painters  became  interested  in 
colours  and  nuances  owing  to  their  originally  weak 
eyes.  Adler  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Demosthenes,  who  became  Greece's  greatest  orator, 
struggled  for  many  years  with  an  impediment  in 
his  speech,  that  Mozart  and  Beethoven  suffered 
from  severe  ear  trouble,  that  Bruckner's  ears  were 
stigmatized  by  moles,  and  that  there  are  more  cases 
of  defective  vision  among  pupils  of  art  schools  than 
among  any  other  classes  of  the  population. 

He  even  holds  that  our  sense  of  inferiority  deter- 
mines the  profession  we  embrace  in  real  life  and 
mentions  that  many  excellent  chefs  he  examined 
were  suffering  or  had  recovered  from  acute  gas- 
tric trouble.  Their  inferiority  caused  them  to 
pay  special  attention  to  food  and  its  preparation, 
etc. 

The  social  bearing  of  Adler's  doctrines  is  briefly 
indicated  in  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  of 
his  Neurotic  Constitution:  "Our  Individual  Psy- 
chology has  gone  far  beyond  the  dead  line  of  de- 
scriptive psychology;  to  understand  a  man  means 
to  save  him  from  the  errors  into  which  he  is  led 
by  his  sore,  frantic  but  futile  craving  to  be  like 
unto  God  and  to  make  him  amenable  to  the  unshak- 

[329] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


able  logic  of  human  community  life,  to  instil  into 
him,  the  community  sense." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  best  resume  of  Adler's  theories  will  be  found  in 
Poul  Bjerre's  "Theory  and  Practice  of  Psychoanalysis." 
The  only  works  of  Adler's  which  are  accessible  to  English 
readers  are  his  monograph  on  "Organ  Inferiority  and 
its  Psychic  Compensation"  (Nervous  and  Mental  Disease 
Pub.  Co.)  which  contains  many  case  histories  upon  which 
he  was  to  build  his  later  theories.  His  "Neurotic  Con- 
stitution" (Moffat,  Yard)  is  less  a  book  than  a  series  of 
studies  of  the  neurotic  life  from  several  points  of  view. 


[330] 


CHAPTER  IV:    KEMPF.    DYNAMIC 
MECHANISM 

Valuable  as  their  theories  are,  one  cannot  help 
feeling  that  Freud's  and  Jung's  mode  of  thinking  is 
still  closely  related  to  that  of  the  academic  psycholo- 
gists. They  give  the  impression  that  the  mental 
and  the  physical  are  two  separate  entities.  The 
term  conversion  used  by  Freud  to  designate  the 
physical  symptoms  accompanying  certain  emotions 
seems  to  imply  a  duality  in  organic  manifestations 
which,  to  modern  scientists,  appears  totally  un- 
founded. 

When  Freud  and  Jung  speak  of  libido,  cravings, 
censor,  etc.,  they  are  almost  as  vague  and  uncon- 
vincing as  Bergson  when  he  speaks  of  the  vital 
urge. 

Adler  felt  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  more 
intimate  connection  between  physical  and  mental 
manifestations,  but  he  did  not  make  the  mechanism 
of  compensation  clearer  to  his  readers  than  Freud 
did  the  mechanism  of  conversion. 

It  will  be  only  when  we  know  what  part  of 

[331] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


the  organism  "produces"  an  emotion  and,  re- 
ciprocally, what  part  of  the  organism  is  af- 
fected by  a  given  emotion,  that  we  shall  vis- 
ualize clearly  the  relations  between  "mind"  and 
"body."  Then  we  shall  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  the  vital  urge  and  of  the  libido;  then,  the  so- 
called  "nervous"  disturbances  as  well  as  conscious- 
ness and  its  content  (thought)  shall  lose  their  mys- 
tery. 

Edward  J.  Kempf,  of  Saint  Elizabeth  Hospital, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  attacks  the  problem  from  a  new 
and  original  point  of  view. 

Kempf  states  frankly  his  dislike  of  the  term 
libido.  Although  that  term  attempts  to  represent 
graphically  the  energic  constitution  of  man  and  his 
love  of  life,  it  lacks  clearness,  for  the  human  mind 
cannot  very  well  conceive  of  a  process  as  such,  un- 
less there  is  some  thing  that  proceeds. 

The  concept  of  electricity  would  be  hazy  indeed, 
were  it  not  that  we  can  visualize  dynamos,  wires, 
sparks,  bulbs  and  many  other  visible,  tangible,  etc., 
means  of  production  or  manifestation  of  the  force 
called  electricity. 

In  order  to  explain  the  great  physiological 
changes  which  influence  human  thought  and  be- 
haviour and  the  biological  nature  of  man,  Kempf 
has  developed  a  conception  of  the  personality  based 
[332] 


The  Importance  of  the  Brain 


on  the  reflex  actions  of  the  autonomic  nervous  sys- 
tem. 

To  him  the  human  organism  is  a  biological  ma- 
chine which  assimilates,  conserves,  transforms  and 
expends  energy.  All  those  operations  are  regu- 
lated by  the  autonomic  apparatus  which  keeps  in 
touch  with  the  environment  through  the  projicient 
sensori-motor  nervous  system. 

As  the  autonomic  apparatus  becomes  con- 
ditioned (trained)  to  have  acquisitive  and  avertive 
tendencies  toward  its  environment,  according  to 
which  cravings  are  active  in  a  given  situation,  the 
organism's  behaviour  is  the  resultant  of  a  com- 
promise between  the  opposed  cravings. 

The  importance  of  the  brain  is  greatly  minimized 
by  this  conception.  Experiments  have  proved  that 
the  same  form  of  behaviour  is  not  always  due  to  the 
activity  of  the  same  brain  cells  and  the  theories 
which  localize  in  certain  regions  of  the  brain  the 
controlling  forces  of  all  human  conduct  must  be 
abandoned. 

According  to  Kempf,  brain  and  personality,  so 
long  associated  in  popular  parlance,  must  no  longer 
be  considered  as  interchangeable  terms.  In  fact, 
every  part  of  the  body  contributes  something  to  the 
personality  and  to  its  consciousness  of  itself. 

Should  some  one  lose  a  limb  or  a  group  of 

[333] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


muscles,  he  would  lose  at  the  same  time  an  im- 
portant part  of  his  personality.  This  would  mani- 
fest itself  in  the  manner  in  which  he  would  adjust 
himself  to  the  stresses  of  daily  life,  what  he  would 
try  to  do  and  feel  compelled  to  avoid,  etc. 

Analysis  alone  would  reveal  that  fact;  the  natural 
readjustment  of  the  remaining  muscles  would  pre- 
vent any  gross  change  from  being  observable. 

For  instance,  the  loss  of  the  eyes  and  arms  would 
greatly  reduce  the  ability  to  understand  new  ma- 
chinery, new  situations  and  probably  reduce  to  an 
enormous  extent  the  power  of  recalling  experiences 
in  which  the  eyes  and  hands  played  a  predominant 
part,  such  as  writing,  etc. 

Because  most  of  our  thoughts  are  dependent 
upon  our  muscle  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  we  ac- 
tually think  with  our  muscles.  If  we  allow  our- 
selves to  become  aware  of  the  visual  image  of  an 
automobile,  we  are  aware  that  it  is  moving,  because 
the  muscles  of  the  eyeball  shift  the  image  by  modi- 
fying their  postural  tensions. 

Sometimes  the  muscles  of  the  neck  may  con- 
tribute more  information  by  moving  the  head. 

If  we  are  pushing  the  automobile  ourselves,  the 
muscles  of  the  body  come  into  play  to  furnish  other 
images  and  if  we  are  pushing  it  along  a  cold,  wet, 
muddy  road,  the  sensations  of  cold,  wetness  and 
[334] 


The  Social  Herd 


mud  arise  from  the  tactile  receptors  of  our  legs. 

But  such  a  perfect  correlation  between  our 
autonomic  apparatus  and  the  sensori-motor  system 
is  a  gradual  acquisition  of  the  human  being  in  the 
course  of  it  development. 

At  birth,  we  have  a  well-developed,  well-bal- 
anced, autonomic  apparatus  and  a  poorly  co- 
ordinated sensori-motor  system.  The  autonomic 
apparatus,  however,  begins  immediately  to  co- 
ordinate and  control  the  sensori-motor  system  in 
order  to  master  its  environment. 

A  most  important  factor  begins  to  exert  pressure 
upon  the  infant  from  the  very  minute  of  its  birth 
and  exerts  it  throughout  life.  It  is  the  incessant 
pressure  of  the  social  herd,  which  modifies  the 
autonomic  apparatus  and  compels  it  to  adopt  less 
and  less  primitive,  more  and  more  civilized  and  in- 
direct methods  of  satisfying  the  various  human 
cravings. 

The  tone  or  tension  produced  by  the  autonomic 
apparatus  in  the  muscles  which  move  our  body  and 
limbs  determines  largely  the  content  of  our  con- 
sciousness or  thoughts. 

This  leads  us  to  a  complete  reversal  of  the  view 
held  by  the  academic  philosophers  and  psycho- 
logical laboratory  observers. 

According  to  them  the  emotions  are  one  of  the  re- 

[335] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


suits  of  the  mind's  contemplation  of  phenomena 
taking  place  within  or  without  the  organism. 
"Bodily"  reactions  and  "mental"  reactions  take 
place  after  the  emotion  has  been  experienced. 

James  and  Lange  advanced  the  theory  that  our 
feeling  of  bodily  changes,  following  the  perception 
of  a  stimulus,  is  the  emotion.  Kempf  goes  further 
and  states  that  if  we  experience  an  emotion,  it  is 
because  some  parts  of  the  autonomic  apparatus 
have  assumed  a  certain  tension  which  produces  the 
emotion.  As  evidence,  he  cites  the  fact  that  we 
are  at  times  awakened  at  night  by  fearful  tensions 
whose  cause  is  unknown  and  then  awaken  to  find 
that  there  is  some  one  in  our  room.  Nursing 
mothers  experience  vigorous  disturbances  in  their 
sleep  long  before  they  become  aware  that  their  child 
is  in  distress.  We  become  conscious  of  images  of 
urinating  in  our  dreams  and  find  upon  awakening, 
that  uncomfortable  tensions  of  the  bladder  have 
been  active  for  some  time  owing  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  urine. 

Kempf 's  theory  of  the  dynamic  mechanism  is 
worded  as  follows: 

"Whenever  any  segment  of  the  autonomic-affec- 
tive  apparatus  is  forced  into  a  state  of  hypertension 
through  the  necessities  of  metabolism  or  endo- 
genous or  exogenous  stimuli,  the  hypertense  seg- 
[336] 


The  Basis  of  Behaviour 


ment  gives  off  a  stream  of  emotion  or  affective  crav- 
ing which  compels  the  projicient  apparatus  to  so 
adjust  the  exteroceptors  in  the  environment  as  to 
acquire  stimuli  which  have  the  capacity  to  produce 
comfortable  postural  readjustments  in  those  au- 
tonomy segments" 

In  other  words,  whenever  autonomic  nerves,  for 
instance,  the  nerves  causing  the  contractions  of  the 
stomach  known  as  hunger,  are  made  extremely  tense 
by  the  sight  or  smell  of  food,  they  produce  a  strong 
emotion  or  desire  which  compels  the  sensori-motor 
nerves  to  apply  the  mouth  to  food,  after  which  the 
tension  of  the  autonomic  nerves  is  relieved. 

Kempf  maintains  that  this  biologic  principle  or 
law  is  the  foundation  of  all  human  and  animal  be- 
haviour, to  be  seen  throughout  all  its  workings, 
whether  brief  and  trivial  or  prolonged  and  elabor- 
ate. "The  seeking  and  creating  follows  the  co- 
rollary 'to  obtain  a  maximum  of  autonomic  grati- 
fication with  a  minimum  expenditure  of  energy,' 
thus  developing  increasing  skill  and  power,  exten- 
sion of  influence  and  assurance  of  comfort  and  an 
increasing  margin  of  safety  from  liability  to 
failure." 

Most  of  the  nervous  tensions  originating  in  the 
autonomic  apparatus  have  as  their  biological  aim 
the  acquisition  of  appropriate  pleasant  stimulations 

[337] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


and  the  avoidance  of  destructive  unpleasant  ones; 
for  instance,  they  direct  us  toward  food  and  away 
from  some  danger.  They  are  relieved  only  when 
their  objective  stimulus  is  attained. 

In  certain  cases  the  object  is  unattainable,  being 
socially  tobooed  or  having  passed  beyond  our 
reach,  as  for  example  when  a  loved  person  dies. 
In  such  cases,  tensions  will  remain  unrelieved  and 
become  seriously  distressing  as  well  as  dangerous 
for  our  mental  and  physical  health.  Among  other 
things,  they  disturb  the  blood  supply  to  certain 
organs  and  hence  weaken  them  in  their  struggle 
against  the  bacteria  of  infectious  diseases. 

In  case  of  tuberculosis,  pneumonia,  typhoid,  ex- 
cessive fatigue,  an  exaggerated  emotional  tension 
may  be  fatal.  In  other  words,  the  individual  who 
represses  certain  cravings  because  they  are  ungrati- 
fiable  or  for  fear  of  the  influence  their  gratification 
may  have  on  his  social  standing,  tends  to  have 
organs  which  are  more  liable  to  disease. 

The  struggle  between  conflicting  cravings  was 
considered  by  psychologists  of  the  old  school  as 
taking  place  in  our  "mind."  Kempf  shows  us  that 
it  takes  place  in  our  autonomic  apparatus.  The 
sacral  division  may  be  conditioned  to  need  stimuli 
that  are  perverse  or  tabooed  and  cause  irritability 
and  depression  until  gratified,  whereas  their  un- 
[338] 


The  Fight  for  Nervous  Control 


restrained  indulgence  may  greatly  jeopardize  the 
love  for  social  esteem  and  the  feeling  of  social  fit- 
ness. The  secret  sense  of  social  inferiority,  due 
to  some  one's  awareness  of  tabooed  pelvic  cravings, 
makes  life  in  human  society  a  fearful  ordeal,  which 
in  turn,  disturbs  the  respiratory,  circulatory  and 
gastronomic  functions.  Hence  the  needs  or  crav- 
ings of  the  different  autonomic  segments  converge 
upon  the  projicient  apparatus  and  behaviour  is  the 
physical  or  mechanical  resultant.  This  compels 
the  different  autonomic  segments  to  wage  fierce 
conflict  for  control  of  our  conduct  and  our  conduct 
reveals  the  conflict. 

That  struggle  grows  fiercer  as  the  civilization 
in  which  we  live  grows  more  complex.  At  birth, 
the  autonomic  apparatus  works  smoothly,  because 
the  infant  is  dependent  upon  the  mother  and  hence 
irresponsible.  But  when  the  mother  begins  to  train 
the  infant  to  nurse,  urinate  and  defecate  under 
certain  specific  conditions,  the  autonomic  apparatus 
for  the  first  time  clashes  with  society  which  insists 
on  self-restraint,  self-control  and  self-refinement. 

Heedless  indulgence  by  an  individual  of  any  age 
causes  uncomfortable  tensions  in  his  associates, 
(disgust,  fear,  anger),  and  therefore  they  are  com- 
pelled to  control  social  tendencies  in  every  in- 
dividual from  his  earliest  childhood. 

[339] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Acquisitive  cravings  know  no  social  law,  how- 
ever, and  often  threaten  to  jeopardize  the  person- 
ality by  impelling  it  to  do  something  which  is 
illegal  or  immoral.  For,  after  all,  man  is  simply 
an  ape  that  has  learnt  to  wear  clothes,  to  use  words 
and  signs  and  that  can  foresee  in  a  general  sense 
the  possible  biological  and  social  results  of  certain 
indulgences. 

Autonomic  segments  of  the  infant  are  then 
trained  (conditioned)  to  react  to  certain  stimuli, 
for  instance,  to  certain  vocal  sounds  and  touches 
indicating  the  time  for  nursing,  to  signs  and  touches 
indicating  disapproval  of  certain  acts;  the  fear  of 
losing  certain  agreeable  stimuli  gradually  develops 
in  him  a  certain  degree  of  self-control. 

Many  cravings  of  an  ungratifiable  or  unjustifi- 
able nature,  however,  resist  all  attempts  on  the  part 
of  our  environment  to  curb  them.  Compensatory 
strivings  are  then  set  in  motion  to  prevent  them, 
either  from  manifesting  themselves  or  from  being 
recognized  in  order  that  the  organism  may  escape 
the  concomitant  fear.  A  state  of  fear  induces 
malnutrition  and  impotence  and  hence  would  be 
destructive  for  the  individual  and  the  race. 

When  a  craving  is  allowed  to  make  the  organ- 
ism aware  of  its  needs,  but  is  not  allowed  to  cause 
overt  acts,  it  is  said  to  be  suppressed.  When  it  is 
[340] 


The  Sane  and  the  Insane 


not  allowed  to  cause  the  organism  to  become  aware 
of  its  needs,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  repressed. 

But  neither  suppression  nor  repression  is  synony- 
mous with  annihilation.  Whether  we  remain  in 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  a  boiler  is  full  of  steam 
or  simply  disregard  that  fact,  the  steam  is  there, 
seeking  an  outlet  and  likely  to  create  an  abnormal 
one,  unless  a  normal  outlet  is  provided. 

Repressed  autonomic  segments,  like  steam  in  a 
boiler,  need  but  the  slightest  opportunity  offered 
by  the  environment,  or  the  slightest  relaxation  of 
the  repressing  forces  to  obtain  control  of  the  sen- 
sori-motor  nervous  system.  We  may  suppress  our 
disgust  or  anger  to  save  appearances  but  we  will 
at  the  same  time,  by  remarks,  by  our  very  tone  of 
voice  or  gestures,  betray  our  real  feelings;  we  will 
have  dreams  which  picture  the  attempted  or  suc- 
cessful gratification  of  suppressed  cravings. 

The  essential  difference  between  most  sane  and 
insane  people  is  that  insane  people  cannot  control 
their  repressed  cravings  while  sane  people  can. 
That  is  to  say,  when  people  become  fatigued,  toxic, 
dazed  and  can  no  longer  control  their  repressed 
cravings,  those  cravings  cause  a  form  of  behaviour 
which  is  termed  insane. 

As  the  human  individual  grows  and  develops,  he 
gradually  becomes  able  to  control  the  activities  of 

[341] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


the  various  cravings  with  the  exception,  however, 
of  the  sexual  cravings.  When  sexual  cravings  are 
normal,  they  are  naturally  justified  and,  under  cer- 
tain conditions,  they  are  permitted  socially  to 
dominate  our  behaviour. 

When  the  personality,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
siders sexual  cravings  as  shameful  inferiorities, 
either  because  they  are  perverse  or  because  the  per- 
sonality has  been  educated  in  a  prudish  way,  the 
individual  becomes  forced  into  a  form  of  adjust- 
ment which  is  abnormal  on  account  of  the  auto- 
nomic  conflict  it  entails. 

Whenever  a  violent  conflict  rages  in  our 
autonomic  apparatus  between  acquisitive  and  aver- 
tive  cravings,  a  neurosis  ensues,  or  rather,  the 
neurosis  IS  the  conflict.  No  constitutional  predis- 
position is  needed  to  bring  about  its  onset.  Life's 
experiences  and  the  influence  of  our  environment 
and  associates  are  sufficient  as  determining  factors. 

Kempf  does  not  accept  Freud's  theory  as  to  the 
importance  of  sex  (love)  in  the  causation  of 
neurotic  disturbances.  Any  of  the  primary  crav- 
ings, love,  hate,  hunger,  shame,  sorrow,  fear  or 
disgust  may  cause  a  neurosis  under  appropriate 
conditions. 

The  neurotic  is  suffering  from  cravings  which 
he  cannot  allow  to  dominate  his  personality. 
[342] 


Reclassifying  the  Neuroses 


Those  cravings  are  so  often  located  in  postural  ten- 
sions of  certain  organs  that  they  are  probably  con- 
sistent things  even  if  they  are  not  always  discover- 
able. 

A  strong  craving  like  the  famishing  influence  of 
protracted  hunger,  which  originates  in  the  stomach, 
or  the  severe  itching  of  an  area  of  the  skin,  may 
finally  determine  all  the  adjustments  of  the  entire 
personality  and  be  felt  over  the  entire  body. 

The  result  may  be  a  severe  struggle  to  eliminate 
the  craving  from  the  personality.  Or  the  person- 
ality may  resign  itself  to  the  domination  of  the 
craving  and  to  a  regression  in  which  the  individual 
enjoys  tensions  and  images,  fancies,  delusions,  hal- 
lucinations which  simulate  the  craved  reality. 

On  the  basis  of  this  conception  of  the  personality, 
Kempf  rejects  entirely  the  usual  classification  of 
mental  disturbances  into  neuroses,  psycho-neuroses 
and  psychoses.  That  classification  is  very  unscien- 
tific and  unbiological  for  it  is  based  upon  symptoms 
which  may  change  under  different  conditions  or  un- 
der the  care  of  different  physicians.  In  many  in- 
stitutions, for  example,  the  diagnosis  "manic-de- 
pressive" tacitly  means  recoverable,  while  "de- 
mentia praecox"  means  incurable,  so  that  if  a 
dementia  praecox  patient  shows  a  tendency  to  re- 
covery he  is  reclassified  as  "manic-depressive." 

[343] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


Kempf's  classification  takes  into  account  the  na- 
ture of  the  patient's  autonomic  cravings  and  his  at- 
titude toward  them.  It  is,  therefore,  essentially 
mechanistic  and  truly  biological. 

Every  nervous  disturbance  is  designated  as  a 
neurosis. 

The  neurosis  is  then,  according  to  its  duration, 
termed  acute,  chronic  or  periodic.  The  term  acute 
is  reserved  for  cases  of  less  than  a  year's  duration. 
Chronic  is  applied  to  cases  having  had  more  than  a 
year's  duration  or  which  have  had  an  insidious 
course  for  more  than  a  year  before  the  consultation. 
Periodic  is  applied  to  cases  which  have  periodic  or 
intermittent  episodes  or  recurrences  accompanying 
natural  phenomena  such  as  menstruation,  preg- 
nancy, marriage,  death  of  a  child,  etc. 

The  neurosis  is  further  qualified  with  regard 
to  its  mechanism,  that  is,  the  insight  the  patient 
has  retained.  The  neurosis  is  benign  when  the  pa- 
tient recognizes  that  his  distress  or  disease  is  due 
to  the  suppression  of  unjustifiable  or  ungratifiable 
cravings  which  are  a  part  of  his  personality.  The 
neurosis  is  pernicious  when  the  patient  refuses  to 
attribute  his  trouble  to  a  personal  cause  or  wish,  in- 
sists that  it  is  due  to  an  impersonal  cause  or  a  mali- 
cious influence  and  tends  to  hate  any  one  who  would 
attribute  it  to  a  personal  source. 
[344] 


Reclassifying  the  Neuroses 


According  to  the  mechanism  of  the  autonomic 
conflict  involved,  neuroses  are  differentiated  into 
five  types : 

The  suppression  neuroses  are  characterized  by 
the  fact  that  the  patient  is  more  or  less  conscious  of 
the  nature  and  effect  upon  himself  of  his  ungrati- 
fiable  cravings.  For  instance,  a  man  may  be  af- 
fected by  his  love  for  a  faithless,  indifferent  or  dead 
woman;  a  soldier  may  be  caught  between  two  fears, 
that  of  death  and  that  of  a  court  martial,  etc.,  and 
know  that  it  causes  him  insomnia,  headache,  cardiac 
anxiety,  diarrhoea,  etc. 

In  repression  neuroses,  the  individual  tries  to 
prevent  the  autonomic  cravings  from  making  them- 
selves known  and  influencing  his  personality.  A 
repressed  fear  may  make  a  man  blind  or  lame  and 
he  may  feel  convinced  that  an  actual  fall,  bruise 
or  wrench  is  responsible  for  his  condition,  because 
he  has  succeeded  in  making  himself  forget  the 
cravings  that  are  relieved  by  being  blind  or 
lame. 

Compensation  neuroses  are  characterized  by  a 
reflex  effort  to  develop  functions  which  will  com- 
pensate for  some  organic  or  functional  inferiority 
or  keep  an  undesirable  craving  repressed,  which 
is  unconsciously  causing  fear.  Very  often  the  ef- 
fort is  adapted  or  designed  to  destroy  or  defeat  en- 

[345] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


vironment  factors  which  arouse  the  intolerable 
craving  or  oppose  the  compensation.  Egotism,  in- 
tolerance and  exaggerated  claims  are  typical  of 
compensation  neuroses. 

Regression  neuroses  are  just  the  opposite.  The 
individual  makes  no  effort  to  win  or  retain  social 
esteem  and  regresses  to  a  lower,  childlike  or  in- 
fantile level,  becoming  apathetic,  slovenly,  irre- 
sponsible, often  showing  suicidal  tendencies,  and 
allowing  the  cravings  to  do  as  they  please. 

The  regression  may  be  a  relatively  benign  epi- 
sode of  a  few  months'  duration.  It  may  in  other 
cases  be  followed  by  a  feeling  of  having  died  and 
passed  through  a  rebirth,  and  also  of  having 
eliminated  all  the  sinful  cravings  in  order  to  begin 
life  anew.  This  form  of  adjustment  may  work  as 
long  as  the  subject  lives  in  a  protected,  non-com- 
petitive environment.  Later,  an  eccentric  over- 
compensation  often  takes  place  which  eventually 
leads  to  another  neurosis  or  a  permanent  deteriora- 
tion of  the  personality. 

In  dissociation  neuroses,  the  patient  succeeds  in 
keeping  his  undesirable  cravings  repressed  until 
they  finally  become  dissociated.  The  individual 
is  then  conscious  of  weird,  distorted  images,  hallu- 
cinations of  past  sensations  and  experiences  which 
seem  to  gratify  the  dissociated  effect  although  they 
[346] 


The  Analytic  Treatment 


horrify  the  individual.  The  individual  is  also 
dominated  by  unacceptable,  mysterious  obsessions, 
fears,  compulsions  and  inspirations.  There  may 
be  also  severe  visceral  distress,  motor  disturbances, 
amnesia,  etc. 

The  analytic  treatment  as  mapped  out  by  Kempf, 
consists  in  developing  a  transference,  that  is,  giving 
the  subject  an  apportunity  to  rely  upon  the  al- 
truistic judgment  of  some  authoritative  practitioner 
and  enabling  him  to  allow  his  repressions  to  make 
themselves  conscious. 

Kempf  disagrees  with  Jung  on  the  extent  to  which 
the  transference  should  be  used  and  he  considers 
it  essential  in  order  to  help  the  neurotic  to  become 
socially  constructive.  Only  in  that  way  can  the 
analyst  fulfil  the  mission  in  which  the  neurotic's 
parents  failed. 

After  the  subject  succeeds  in  giving  full  expres- 
sion to  his  repressed  affects,  those  affects  become 
assimilated  with  the  personality  and  form  an  inti- 
mate part  of  it,  instead  of  remaining  uncontrol- 
lable, unconscious  or  mysterious  factors.  In  that 
way  the  dissociated  cravings  which  cause  obses- 
sions, phobias,  mannerisms,  compulsions,  delu- 
sions, hallucinations,  regressions,  eccentric  com- 
pensations and  prejudices,  are  once  more  merged 
with  the  organism  from  which  they  had  been  ab- 

[347] 


Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour 


normally  separated  and  the  functional  distortion 
disappears. 

The  subject  having  acquired  insight  and  being 
free  from  the  fear  of  something  within  himself, 
becomes  capable  of  making  a  sensible,  practical 
adjustment. 

When  that  readjustment  is  effected  an  intelligent 
use  of  the  reconstructive,  suggestive  method  seems 
to  be  most  effective  in  giving  the  neurotic  new  in- 
terests for  which  to  live  and  work,  without  seeking 
abnormal  compensations  for  prudish  or  fearful  re- 
pressions or  yielding  to  perverse  cravings. 

The  choice  of  a  method,  Kempf  thinks,  should  be 
left  to  the  patient  but  he  should  not  be  allowed  to 
avoid  the  work  of  reconstruction.  Furthermore, 
the  analysis  should  be  accompanied  by  vigorous 
indulgence  in  social  play  requiring  exposure  of 
functional  or  organic  inferiorities  to  more  or  less 
critical  evaluation  by  competitors.  Thus  the  sub- 
ject will  become  immune  to  the  fear  of  failure  or 
inferiority  and  will  avoid  eccentric  compensation 
and  a  seclusive  mode  of  life. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

To  understand  Kempf's  works  one  must  have  acquired 
a  good  working  knowledge  of  the  autonomic  system  and 
of  endocrinology.  See  the  bibliography  following  the 
[348] 


Bibliography 


chapter  on  Nerves  and  Nervousness.  Kempf's  style  is 
extremely  technical  and  remarkable  for  its  accuracy  but 
not  easily  understood  by  the  layman.  The  body  of  his 
doctrines  is  contained  in  his  book  "Psychopathology," 
published  by  C.  V.  Mosby,  in  which  he  discusses  the 
physical  basis  of  the  personality,  the  psychology  of 
the  family,  the  universal  struggle  for  virility,  organic 
and  functional  inferiorities  and  their  influence  on  the 
personality,  the  various  forms  of  neuroses,  etc. 

Also  consult  the  following  monographs  and  articles: 
KEMPF,  EDWARD  J. — "The  Mechanistic  Classification  of 
Neuroses  and  Psychoses  Produced  by  Distortion  of 
the  Autonomic-affective  Functions,"  Journal  of  Nerv- 
ous and  Mental  Disease,  August,  1919. 
KEMPF,  EDWARD  J. — "The  Tonus  of  Autonomic  Segments 
as  Causes  of  Abnormal  Behaviour,"/ournaZ  of  Nerv- 
ous and  Mental  Disease,  January,  192Q. 
KEMPF,  EDWARD  J. — "The  Autonomic  Functions  and  the 
Personality,"  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Mono- 
graph Series  No.  28. 


[349] 


INDEX 


Absent-minded,  192 

Actors,  328 

Adler,  53,  54,  92,  106,  319  sqq 

Adrenals,  89 

Adrenin,  26,  38 

Advice  (to  patients),  283 

Alma  Z.  (case),  133  sqq. 

Anna  (little  Anna),  73  sqq. 

Anxiety   (dreams),  189 

Anxiety   (neurosis),  297 

Aphasia,  107 

Aphonia,  107 

Appelt   (A),  114 

Arpad  (case),  69  sqq. 

Arterial    (tension),  89 

Artistic   (creation),  328,  329 

Ascetics,  241 

Aschner  Test,  40,  41,  203 

Attitudes,  233 

Attitudes  (ready  for  use),  325 

Autoerotism,  294 

Autonomic  (system),  35 

Baby  talk,  227 

Baldness,  279 

Beauchamp  (case),  132  sqq. 

Bees  (mating),  29 

Beethoven,  264,  329 

Bergson,  305 

Bernheim,  271 

Bleuler,  75 

Bourne  (Rev.  Ansel),  130  sqq. 

Bovary  (Madame),  245  sqq. 

Brain,  333 

Bruckner,  329 


Calvities,  279 

Canalization    (of    the    libido), 

315 

Cannon  (W.  B.),  33 
Castration,  241 
Caterpillars,  28 
Charcot,  271 
Charity,  248 

Chicago    (vice  report),  255 
Circus  freaks,  56 
Clergymen,  258 

Compensation    (neuroses),    345 
Complex,  17,  18 
Comstock   (Anthony) ,  259  sqq. 
Conflicts,  315 
Conversion,  331 
Copepods,  27 
Coriat  (I.  H.),  114 
Courtship,  226 
Cowards,  42,  43 
Cranio-sacral  division,  36,  37 
Cranks,  92 

Craving  (for  power),  326 
Cravings,  240 
Cravings    (parasitic),  247 
Crile  (G.  W.),  33 
Criminals      (way     of     dealing 

with),  32 
Crowd  psychology,  26 

Dementia  praecox,  95 
Demosthenes,  329 
Dog  (electric),  29,  30 
Dogs  (experiments  on),  25,  41, 
42,  45,  193 

[351] 


Index 


Don  Juan,  328 

Dostoyevsky,  273 

Dreams,    185,    201    sqq.,    219, 

290,  291,  311,  326 
Dual   (personalities),  129-145 
Dubois,  281 
Diplomats,  170 
Disparagement,  94 
Dissociation    (neuroses),  346 

Eder  (M.  D.),  114 

Edison,  190 

Energic  (viewpoint),  305 

Enlightenment    (sexual),  66-86 

Epidemics,  180 

Epileptics,  102 

Eroticism,  310 

Erotropism,  219 

Exhibitionism,    170,    171,    180, 

294 
Extroversion,  104 


Father    (fixation),  61,  62,   63, 

221  sqq. 
Fatigue,  194 
Father  (image),  221 
Ferenczi,  69,  101,  176 
Fetichism,  230  sqq. 
Fielding  (W.  J.),  251 
Fishes    (observations  on),   120, 

228 
Fixations    (childhood),    53-65, 

295,  296 

Food-Ego-Power  Urge,  39 
Frazer  (J.  G.),  115 
Free-will,  27 
Freud,  53,  54,  56,  66,  167,  181, 

200,  239,  271,  289  sqq. 
Freudians,  270,  274 
Frigidity,  253 
Frogs  (experiments  on),  24 


[352] 


Gastric  fistula,  46 

Glycogen,  38 

Goal  (fictitious),  322,  323 

Goethe,  242 

Golden  Bough,  115 

Goodhart  (Dr.  S.  P.),  136,  138 

Hanna  (Rev.  T.  C.)   136  sqq. 
Hans  (Little  Hans),  69 
Heliotropism.  219 
Holding  hands,  227 
Homosexualism,   234 
Hyperaesthetic,  254 
Hypnotic   (technique),  272 
Hypnotism,  269  sqq. 

Imago,  309 

Imitation,  55,  57 

Impotence   (dreams),  210 

Inbreeding,  123,  124 

Incest  (fancy),  323 

Incest  (in  dreams),  214,  327 

Individual  psychology,  319 

Individualism  (neurotic) ,  313 

Inferiority    (feeling  of),  324 

Inferiority    (organic),   320 

Insane  (care  of  the),  160,  161, 

162,  163 
Insane  (who  were  cured),  160, 

161 

Insanity,  299 
Intolerance,  177 
Introversion,  95,  226,  227 
Introverts,  308 

James  (William),  131 
Jealousy,  225 
Jelliffe  (Dr.  S.  E.),  285 
Juke  family,  124 
Jung,    73   sqq.,    271,    280,    305 
sqq. 


Index 


Kempf    (E.  J.),   126,   127,   146      Normal  (type),  39 
sqq.,  240,  331  sqq.  Noses  (red),  280 


Lay,  William,  22 

Libido,  294,  299,  305,  331 

Liebeault,  271 

Loeb,  Jacques,  22,  237 

Lombroso,  277 

Love,  219-238 

Love  (at  first  sight),  223 

Love   (unhappy) ,  229 

Manaceine  (Mrae.  de) ,  200 

Marriage,  223  sqq. 

Masochism,  236 

Memory,  107  sqq. 

Mendel,  117 

Midianites,  173 

Mirbeau,  231 

Mitchell  (Dr.  S.  Weir),  135 

Mnemotechnic  methods,  110 

Monotony,  191 

Morality,  316 

Morphine,   284 

Moses,    173 

Mother  (fixation)  58  sqq.,  151, 

160,  213,  221  sqq. 
Mother  (image),  221 
Mozart,  329 
Musicians,  329 
Mysogynist,  328 

Nagging,  100 

Napoleon,  190 

Narcotics,  200 

Neurasthenia,  298 

Neurosis,  297,  298,  343;  classi- 
fication of  neuroses,  344 

Nietzsche,  220 

Nightmares,  197,  198,  208,  209 
210,  211 


Oedipus  Complex,  54 
Onanism,  67 
Orange  (blossoms),  188 
Orphans,  64 
Oversexed,    254 

Painters,  329 

Parents   (image),  221  sqq. 

Parents  (role  of),  308 

Pathogenic    (wishes),  292 

Pavlof,  45 

Perversions,  234 

Pfister,  251 

Philanthropy,  248 

Pigeons,  222,  235 

Polymorphous  Perverse,  306 

Pouchet,  120 

Prayer  (in  sleeplessness),  199 

Prepubertal  (period),  307 

Presexual    (period),  306 

Prince   (Morton),  132 

Psychoanalytic  (point  of  view), 

289 

Psycho-neuroses,  298 
Psychoses,  298,  299 
Puritanism,  252-268 

Quacks,  251 
Quarrels,  46 

Raids,  179,  180 
Regression,  88,  273 
Regression    (neuroses),  346 
Religious  meditation,  248 
Repression    (neuroses),  345 
Retaliation,  175 
Reynolds   (Mary),  135,  136 
Ring  Doves,  222 

[353] 


Index 


Ripper   (Jack  the),  175 
Rodin,  242 

Sadism,  236 
Safety  Urge,  39 
Scapegoats,  115-128 
Second  (wind),  193 
Seditious  persons,  174 
Selenium,  29 
Self-sacrifice,  310 
Sensori-motor  nerves,  34-35 
Sex  Books,  153 
Sex  Urge,  39 
Shoes  and  Rice,  187,  188 
Sick   (headache),  102 
Sidis   (Boris),  269 
Singers,  328 
Sleep,  185-200 
Sleeplessness,  185-200 
Snakes    (in  dreams),  189 
Social  Diseases,  256 
Social  (herd),  335 
Speakers,  328 
Stammering,  107  sqq. 
Stork  (stories),  74,  75 
Straton  (Rev.  J.  R.),  257 
Sublimation,  239  sqq. 
Suggestion,  269 
Sumner  (J.  S.),  257,  263 
Sunday  (Billy),  262 
Superstitions,  251 
Suppression   (neuroses),  345 
Svengali,  273 


Sweat    (glands),  185 
Symbols,  312 
Sympathetic  system,  35 
Sympathicotonic,  40,  45,  47 

Talking  (cures)  281 
Thoracico-lumbar    division,    36, 

37 

Thumb-sucking,  293 
Tolstoy,  264 
Train  (G.  R),  255 
Trance,  276 
Transference,  300-301 
Traumas,  292 
Typhoid  vaccine,  43 

Unconscious,  13  sqq. 
Uniforms   (military),  171,  172 
Urination    (nervous),    249 

Vagotonic,  40,  45,  47,  185 

Vegetative  system,  35 

Vice    (N.    Y.    Society   for   the 

Suppression  of),  255  sqq. 
Vinci    (Leonardo  da),  242 


Western      University 

ments),  196 
Wetterstrand,  278 
Will-to-Power,   100 
Worry,  196 

Zinzendorf,  248 


(experi- 


[354] 


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